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TAITH  AND^ 
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MARTI  NEAU 


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FAITH   and  SELF=SURRENDER. 
By  Dr.  Martineau. 


FAITH    THE    BEQINNINQ, 
SELF=SURRENDER    THE 
FULFILMENT,    OF    THE 
SPIRITUAL    LIFE. 

/ 
By  James  Martineau,  d.d.,  d.c.l.. 

Author  of    "Endeavours    after    a    Christian 
Life,"  "Hours  of  Thought"    &c. 


NEW  YORK: 

The  macmillan   co.    1897. 


Contents. 


PAGE 

Faith  the  Root  of  Knowledge  and 

of  Love       ...         ...         1 

The  Lapse  of  Time  and  the  Law  of 

Obligation ...         ...         ...         ...  35 

Thou  Art  My  Strength        67 

The  Claims  of  Christian  Enterprise  97 


Faith  the  Root 

of 

Knowledge  and  of  Love, 


FAITH   THE    ROOT 

of 

KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE. 

"  The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy  .  .  , 
faith."— Gal.  v.  22. 

That  it  is  the  natural  tendency 
of  a  good  heart  to  believe  in 
goodness  and  of  the  cunning  to 
suspect  intrigue^  is  a  fact  perfectly 
familiar  to  us  all ;  and  f roro  the 
kind  of  interpretation  which  a  man 
habitually  puts  upon  the  conduct 
of  his  fellows^  you  would  never 
hesitate  to  take  your  impression 
of  what  he  himself  is.  In  human 
affairs  it  is  not  esteemed  a  reproach 


FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF 


to  read  off  tlie  appearances  of  life 
by  the  light  of  a  pure  and  loving- 
soul^  and  repress  as  a  temptation 
the  misgivings  of  a  cold,  untrust- 
ful  temper.  There  we  know  well 
enough  that  as  a  man  feels  so 
will  he  think;  that  the  scene 
before  him  will  take  its  colour 
from  the  tint  of  his  affections ;  yet 
we  do  not  on  that  account  mock  at 
all  his  notions  as  a  dream  of  the 
insane,  or,  unless  they  betray  him 
into  manifest  illusions,  suppose 
him  cut  off  from  all  hope  of  know- 
ing the  truth.  Nor  do  we  recom- 
mend him,  in  order  to  prevent  mis- 
takes, to  get  rid  of  all  his  affections 
and  become  indifferent  to  every 
thing  now  dear.  Thus  to  slip  the 
shades  over  every  luminous  side 
of  his   moral   nature  would   only 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.         5 

turn  it  into  a  dark  lantern,  with 
which,  prowl  about  as  he  may,  he 
could  find  neither  knaves  nor 
honest  men.  Impartiality  of  this 
sort — consisting  of  absolute  sup- 
pression of  every  wish — is  only  an- 
other name  for  utter  blindness  to 
the  relations  of  the  moral  world. 
Extinguish  every  emotion,  and  no 
intellect  remains  by  which  any 
sense  at  all  can  be  extracted  from 
the  course  of  human  affairs.  You 
might  still,  indeed,  beat  time  like 
a  clock,  and  measure  space  like  a 
chain,  and  weigh  the  strength  of 
the  winds,  and  keep  account  of 
damps  and  heat ;  you  might  grind 
your  corn  and  post  your  books. 
But  with  the  physical  outside  and 
uses  of  things  your  intelligence 
would  stop;    their   expressiveness 


6  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF 

would  lie  in  the  dark ;  no  sound 
would  be  music,,  no  sight  would 
be  beauty;  the  eyes  of  a  saint 
would  be  but  two  optical  organs, 
and  the  sweetest  smile  but  a 
twisted  mouth.  Accordingly^ 
there  are  no  men  whose  judgment 
on  human  life  is  so  incompetent^, 
and  who  pass  through  it  so  ignorant 
of  its  chief  realities,  as  those  who 
have  no  heart-wisdom,  and,  in  the 
numbness  of  their  nature,  rely  on 
mere  sharp-sightedness  for  seeing 
what  is  invisible.  Clear,  impartial 
insight  requires,  not  that  we 
have  no  preferences,  but  that 
we  have  right  preferences;  not 
that  we  shut  ourselves  up  with 
one  faculty,  but  that  we  be  free 
through  the  harmony  of  all.  A 
man    who    cannot    see    correctly 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.         7 

unless  he  is  perfectly  indifferent 
as  to  what  he  sees^  to  whom  one 
discovery  must  be  as  welcome  as 
another  else  he  will  lie  to  his  own 
heart,  who  cannot  give  an  honest 
verdict  in  the  face  of  agony,  is 
unfit  for  the  exercise  of  moral 
judgment  at  all.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  mere  outside  evidence  of 
matters  either  human  or  Divine. 
It  is  all  reciprocation  and  response  . 
between  the  inner  soul  and  the 
outer  object ;  and  the  quiclniess  of 
that  response,  the  penetration  of 
the  glance,  the  certainty  of  the 
mutual  understanding,  will  depend 
not  on  the  coldness,  but  on  the 
fixed  intensity  of  the  mind  that 
sends  forth  its  look.  If  you  carr}' 
tidings  that  a  child  is  dead,  the 
mother  will  be  the  first  to  read  the 


8  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF 

news   upon   your   very  face,   and 
drag  it  from  the  hiding  of  your 
reserve ;  and  if  there  were  no  God, 
the  soul  that  had  loved  Him  most, 
and     could    pretend    to    no    joy 
without  His   presence,   would   be 
the  first  to  miss  Him.     To  say,  as 
some  strangely  do,  that  religious 
people  cannot  judge  about  religion, 
is   like   saying  that  the   humane 
cannot  understand    suffering,    or 
genius  appreciate  poetry ;  that  for 
truth  in  Art  you  must  avoid  con- 
sulting Raphael,  and  in  music  you 
must  keep  clear  of  Beethoven.    In 
contradiction  to  all  such  pedantry 
I  venture  to  maintain   that  only 
through  love  and  trust  can  God  be 
known ;  that  by  bare  sense  and 
understanding  faith  may  be  lost, 
but  can  never  be  won ;  that  when 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF   LOVE.  9 

it  goes,  the  intellect  is  in  such  re- 
lations intellect  no  more^  but  is 
turned  from  a  medium  of  light 
to  an  instrument  of  delusion  and, 
degraded  from  the  prophet's  rod 
to  the  measuring  staff  of  material 
science,  ennobles  and  consecrates 
us  no  more.  To  a  being  quite 
strange  to  our  affections — a  being 
differently  made  and  coming  from 
another  world — the  human  coun- 
tenance would  present  nothing  but 
a  configuration  of  protuberances 
and  depressions;  all  the  dear  living 
light,  the  waves  of  thought  that 
chase  across  like-  corn  that  bends 
before  the  wind,  the  springing 
tears,  the  kindling  joj,  the  silent 
prayer,  would  be  dead  to  him. 
And  he  who,  from  a  like  physical 
point  of  view,  gazes  on  the  face  of 


10  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF 


this  universe,  who  presents  him- 
self before  it  as  a  foreigner  with 
no  sympathies  to  aid  him,  will  find 
it  all  made  up  of  matter  and 
motion;  he  sees  one  thing  standing 
beside  another,  and  one  change 
coming  after  another,  but  it  will 
be  the  expression  of  no  mind.  Its 
space  and  silence  will  not  look  at 
him  like  the  clearness  of  an  ever- 
lasting brow.  No  awful  Pity  will 
watch  him  beneath  the  arch  of 
night.  No  solemn  Will  flows  down 
upon  the  streams ;  and  the  spring 
grass  and  the  autumn  forest  will 
be  simply  a  painted  green  and  red 
without  being  felt  as  the  blush  of 
Thought  coming  to  the  surface. 
Natural  faith  is  the  essential  root 
of  all  knowledge,  love,  and  peace ; 
whose  place,  do  what  you  will,  is 


KNOWIiEDGE    AND    OF   LOVE.       11 

not  at  the  end,  but  at  the  begin- 
ning of  thought ;  which  gives  to 
the  intellectual  faculties  their  only 
ground,  instead  of  being  indebted 
to  them  for  its  own  ;  which,  while 
allied  with  them,  exchanges  with 
them  refinement  and  elevation, 
and  forms  a  glorious  nature  ;  but, 
when  divorced  from  them,  dooms 
them  and  itself  to  dwindle  and 
die.  By  natural  faith  I  mean 
the  assumption  that  a  Divine 
Perfection  is  the  everlasting  basis  of 
all  things,  that  infinite  Thought 
and  Holiness  are  and  ever  must 
be  at  the  helm  of  affairs,  and  that 
the  universe  is  but  the  pheno- 
menon for  expressing  God's  eternal 
reality. 

Apart  from   this   faith,    know- 
ledge itself  becomes  lowered  in  its 


12  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OP 

spirit  and  restricted  in  its  blessing. 
Knowledge  bears  a  double  fruit 
— a  physical  and  a  moral.  It 
enables  us  to  do  more,  and  disposes 
us  to  he  better.  But  it  is  not  the 
same  kind  of  knowledge  that 
effects  both  of  these  results.  We 
increase  our  power  by  knowing 
objects  that  are  beneath  us ;  our 
goodness  bj  knowing  those  that 
are  above  us.  All  the  triumphs  of 
the  modern  arts  have  been  won  by 
detecting  the  secret  of  some  force 
inferior  in  quality  to  our  own — 
some  force,  therefore,  which  we 
could  transcend  and  subject  to  our 
convenience .  Thu  s  human  thought 
has  proved  too  much  for  the  elas- 
ticity of  steam,  and  sends  it,  like 
a  captured  bondsman,  to  do  its 
task-work   on   the   roads    and   in 


KNOWLEDGE   AND    OF   LOVE.       18 

the  ships.  Electricity  has  been 
caught^  despite  its  invisible  wing, 
and  made  to  fly  to  and  fro  on 
messages  it  knows  not.  Light  has 
been  trained  to  record  and  ^x  the 
images  it  creates,  and  paint  por- 
traits of  the  objects  it  reveals. 
In  all  such  instances  of  new  skill 
and  enlarged  resources,  the  ad- 
vances of  knowledge  have  been 
upon  the  physical  laws  of  Nature  ; 
some  conquered  province  of  crea- 
tion lies  at  our  feet,  and  pays  a 
tribute  to  our  superiority.  But 
who  can  say  that  we  are  personally 
nobler  for  this  homage  ?  The 
telegraph  carries  no  redeeming 
shock  to  any  guilty  will ;  the 
sunbeam  enables  no  deluded  soul 
to  see  itself.  Quicker  voyages, 
more    abundant    jewelry,     larger 


14  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OP 

surfaces  of  silver,  and  unlimited 
square  feet  of  glass,  will  not  make 
one  temper  sweeter,  or  open  a 
transparent  way  througb.  the 
heart  of  selfishness  and  guile.  An 
Eiffel  tower,  from  its  sublime 
height,  may  tell  a  story  of  stoop- 
ing very  low.  If  you  could  bridge 
the  Atlantic,  it  would  give  a  path 
to  knaves  as  well  as  to  honest 
men ;  and  did  you  roof  the  world 
with  crystal,  it  would  make  a 
winter  garden  for  weeds  as  well  as 
flowers.  It  is  a  fatal  delusion  to 
imagine  that  the  arts  of  hfe, 
which  only  enlarge  its  resources, 
have  any  necessary  tendency  to 
improve  its  spirit;  or  that  the 
completest  acquaintance  v\dth 
science  affords  any  guarantee  of 
higher  goodness.      No  laboratory 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.       15 

can  neutralise  the  poison  of  the 
passions,  or  find  a  crucible  to 
make  the  hard  nucleus  of  the 
heart  flown  down  ;  no  observatory 
can  show  us  a  new  constellation 
of  the  virtues,  correct  the  aberra- 
tion of  life's  true  light,  or  deepen 
any  heavens  but  those  of  space. 
Scientific  culture  is  morally 
neutral,  simply  enlarging  the 
range  without  altering  the  quality 
of  the  character.  If  love  and 
faith  be  brought  into  it,  they  will 
find  the  universe  diviner  than  they 
had  thought,  and  yet,  with  an 
elastic  incense  of  contemplation, 
be  able  to  fill  it  all  with  glory.  If 
only  the  sharpness  of  sense  and  in- 
tellect be  brought  into  it,  nothing 
else  will  be  fetched  out  of  it,  and 
where   evil   passions    reign,    new 


16  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OP 

knowledge  is  as  likelj  to  become 
the  implement  of  more  powerful 
wickedness,  as  tlie  limb  which,  you 
restore  for  the  crippled  criminal,, 
or  the  tool  invented  in  a  career  of 
theft.  The  onlj  knowledge  that 
can  really  make  us  better  is  not  of 
things  and  their  laws,  but  of  per- 
sons and  their  thoughts ;  and  I 
would  rather  have  an  hour's  sym- 
pathy with  one  noble  heart  than 
read  the  law  of  gravitation  through 
and  through.  To  teach  us  what 
to  love  and  what  to  hate,  whom  to 
honour  and  whom  to  despise,  is 
the  substance  of  all  human  train- 
ing, and  this  is  not  to  be  learned 
from  the  magnet  or  the  micro- 
scope, from  insects  born  in  galvan- 
ism and  light  polarised  in  crystals, 
but    only    among   the    affairs   of 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OP    LOVE.       17 

men ;  from  the  rich  records  of  the 
pastj  the  strife  of  heroic  and  the 
peace  of  saintly  souls^  from  the 
great  thoughts  of  great  minds,  and 
the  sublime  acts  of  indomitable 
conscience.  The  soul  takes  its 
complexion  and  its  true  port  from 
the  society  in  which  it  dwells ;  ifc 
lives  with  the  living  and  dies  with 
the  dead,  and  no  intimacy  with 
rocks  and  reptiles,  however  enlarg- 
ing to  its  conception  of  the  world, 
can  lift  it  to  its  dignity,  and  warm 
it  with  its  proper  glow ;  but  only 
communion  with  the  prophets,  the 
patriot^  the  sage,  the  martyrs  of 
the  cross.  It  is  the  grand  fault 
of  our  modern  education — a  fault 
which  reaches  its  acme  in  the 
theory  of  a  purely  secular  educa- 
tion— that  we  limit  it  to  the  mere 

2 


18  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF 

l^nowledge  of  things,  smd,  except 
where  the  Christian  Scriptures 
save  us  from  such  blight^  bring 
the  scholar's  mind  into  scarce  any 
admiring  contact  with  pre-eminent 
persons.  We  teach  him  the  gram- 
mar and  the  forms  of  speech,  but 
few  of  the  things  most  worthy  to 
be  spoken.  We  teach  him  the  seas 
and  lands^  the  rivers  and  moun- 
tains of  a  dead  or  empty  world,  but 
of  the  histories  they  have  passed 
there,  the  proud  passages  of  his 
country's  life,  the  good  men  that 
should  be  as  the  beacon  to  his 
path,  we  too  often  leave  him  in 
ignorance.  We  lost  the  true  notion 
of  human  culture  when  we  threw 
away  the  ^'^  lives  of  the  sai7its," 
^The  type  of  excellence  which  they 
held  up  was  not_,  indeed,  the  right 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.       19 

one^  or  worthy  to  be  preserved  in 
the  place  it  claimed ;  but  until 
they  be  rewritten  with  a  better 
selection  of  examples,  and  be 
made  the  manual  and  favourites 
of  the  cottage  and  the  school,  all 
our  education  will  multiply  the 
force  without  greatly  mending  the 
character  of  our  society.  The 
soul  grows  godlike,  not  by  its 
downward  gaze  at  inferior  nature, 
but  by  its  uplifted  look  at  thought 
and  goodness  greater  than  its 
own.  Where  there  is  no  faith, 
where  even  persons  are  regarded  as 
things — organisms  moulded  by  the 
elements  and  galvanised  across 
the  stage — this  attitude  ceases  to 
be  possible ;  inferior  nature  be- 
comes all  in  all,  is  itself  the 
expression  of  no  Thought,  but  the 


20  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF 

raw  material  of  its  manufacture, 
evolves  every  higher  product  out 
of  the  lower,  so  that  the  source  of 
everything  is  the  lowest  of  all, 
and  the  student's  own  genius  and 
intelligence  blindly  issue  from 
forces  that  neither  live  nor  under- 
stand. Where  the  object  known 
is  not  of  higher  nature  than  the 
knower,  he  contemplates  it  with 
reverence  no  more.  He  looks 
on  material  law  as  at  once 
his  creator  and  his  slave,  and  the 
effect  says  to  the  cause,  '^  J  am 
the  greatest  thing  that  you  have 
done ;  in  making  me  you  have 
made  your  master,  who  will  turn 
you  to  unexpected  account."  In 
this  mood  knowledge  is  pushed 
forward  only  in  the  love  of  power, 
the   passion  for    it   sinks  from  a 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.       21 

devoutness  to  an  ambition^  is  no 
longer  as  the  liglit  upon  a  holy 
face,  but  as  a  flame  upon  the  rest- 
less brow  of  demons,  and  seizes  its 
desire  like  the  mad  draught  of 
fever  rather  than  as  the  solemn 
wine  that  has  but  to  kiss  the  lips 
to  become  a  sacrament.  Nothing 
is  so  delirious,  nothing  so  credu- 
lous, as  this  eagerness  for  know- 
ledge as  power,  where  the  wisdom 
of  faith  is  not  present  to  restrain. 
Wild  dreams  of  success,  prophecies 
of  magic  triumphs,  occupy  and 
intoxicate  the  understanding ; 
create  impatience  at  the  present, 
and  throw  contempt  upon  the  past; 
impair  the  clearness  of  reason  and 
observation ;  and  entail  all  the 
delusions  of  a  scornful  mind. 
Modesty    and    humility    are    but 


22  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF 

expressions  of  a  secret  worship  in 
tlie  heart ;  thej  are  that  natural 
homage  to  the  higher  which  cannot 
long  subsist  but  in  the  over- 
shadowing presence  of  the  Highest 
of  all.  Apart  from  God  we  lose 
all  our  proportions  ;  like  the  stones 
of  the  arch  without  their  kej^ 
know  not  our  place^  but  scramble 
into  a  level  equality  of  ruin.  And 
whoever  sees  the  unloveliness  of 
egotism  and  arrogance,  and 
shrinks  from  the  danger  of  them, 
m.ust  press  close  upon  Him  who 
holds  us  together,  giving  a  use  to 
each  and  a  form  of  beauty  to  us 
all.  He  who  ceases  to  kneel  before 
the  Divine  wisdom,  soon  talks 
superciliously  of  the  human,  and 
ends  with  the  worship  of  his 
own. 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.       23 

But,  perhaps^  in  thus  emphasiz- 
ing Faith,  I  am  disarranging  the 
Christian  graces,  the  supreme  of 
which,  I  may  be  reminded,  is 
neither  ^'  Faith,^'  nor  "  Hope,"  but 
''Love."  Yes ;  "  Love  is  greatest  "  ■ 
precisely  because,  in  its  Christian 
sense,  it  presupposes  Faith  and 
Hope,  and  is  their  working  develop- 
ment and  crown  and,  without 
them,  remains  a  mere  pathetic 
fondness,  hardly  deserving  its 
name.  How  wide  is  the  interval 
which  separates  its  rudiments 
from  its  perfect  type  !  If  you  love 
your  dog,  it  is  that  you  sympathise 
with  his  pleasures  and  pains,  and 
reciprocate  his  attachment,  and 
feel  for  his  limitations,  wishing 
that  he  could  speak  and  tell  all 
that  his  dumb  looks  imply.     But 


24  FAITH   THE    ROOT    OF 

the  relation  stops  short  with  the 
present  facts  of  a  common  animal 
nature ;  it  has  no  future  in  it ;  it 
ends  where  the  essence  of  your  life 
begins.  When  you  love  your  child, 
these  rudiments  are  also  there. 
But^  as  he  leaps  into  your  arms, 
you  embrace  him^  less  for  what  he 
is  than  for  what  he  is  to  he.  Be- 
sides Jiis  jo  J,  which  ''  comes  first, 
as  the  natural,"  is  yours,  which 
transcends  it,  as  "^  spiritual." 
You  see  in  him  a  casket  of  immor- 
tal powers,  whose  guardian  you 
are  to  be  under  the  eye  of  God. 
Whatever  this  affection  has  beyond 
mere  instinct  is  due  to  faith  and 
hope,  through  which  it  blends  the 
loveliest  features  of  incipient  finite 
nature  with  the  glory  of  a  spiritual 
infinitude.     Again,    perhaps    you 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.       25 

love  some  wise  and  saintly  friend, 
the  higli  le\^el  and  tender  beauty  of 
wliose  life  have  made  your  own  ill- 
ordered  ways  intolerable  to  you, 
and  have  led  vou  throug-h  the  dis- 
cipline  of  service  to  the  peace  of 
God.  What,  then,  is  your  devotion 
to  him  but  the  confluent  flames 
of  the  faith  which  he  has  kindled, 
and  the  hope  which  he  has 
justified  ?  Or,  once  more,  have 
you,  with  Christ-like  pity,  set 
your  heart  upon  some  soul 
desolate  in  guilt,  which  yields 
before  your  watchful  eye  and  that 
alone,  and  so  forbids  you  to  go 
away,  lest  the  wanderings  return  ? 
Even  here,  what  is  the  secret 
spring  of  that  patient  love  but 
faith  in  the  recuperative  power  of 
sustained   repentance,    and    hope 


26  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF 

that  beneath,  the  quickening 
breath  of  a  pure  experience  the 
spirit  ma.y  jet  be  born  again  ? 
All  distinctively  human  love  carries 
in  it  the  vision  of  higher  possi- 
bilities, so  that  its  verj  essence  is 
tinctured  with  Reverence — rever- 
ence for  what  is  promised  in  the 
child ;  for  what  is  present  in  the 
saint ;  for  what  is  contingent,  but 
attainable yin  the  sinner.  And  Rev- 
erence has  no  entrance  except 
where  souls  are  free,  and  not  fore- 
doomed to  the  better  or  the  worse. 
ISTor  would  God  Himself  be  right- 
eously adorable  if  His  perfection 
were  but  an  infinite  Necessity. 
Vain  and  cruel  would  it  then  be  to 
bid  us  be  ^'  perfect,  as  our  Father 
in  heaven  is  perfect  "  ;  and  the 
declaration    that   ^^His    thoughts 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.       27 

are  not  as  our  thoughts "  woukl 
have  an  absohite  meaning  more 
terrible  than  we  could  bear. 
"Without  the  assurance,,  natural 
to  a  good  heart,  that  intending 
thought  and  preferential  holiness 
are  the  everlasting  basis  of  the 
universe,  intellect  ceases  to  under- 
stand, and  conscience  bears  false 
witness. 

Every  sympathetic  observer  of 
life  must  have  noticed  how  the 
enthusiasm  of  Reverence  declines 
with  the  fading  away  of  Faith  and 
Hope.  In  the  mind  which  ceases 
to  commune  with  the  Supreme 
Perfection,  the  discernment  of 
human  excellence  gradually  loses 
its  quickness  ;  the  feeling  for  it 
becomes  changed  and  lowered ;  it 
is   regarded   with   less   of   simple 


-      28  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF 

trusfc,  witli  nothing  of  intent 
aspiration.  It  stands  no  longer 
upon  "the  hills  whence  cometh 
onr  help,"  and  up  which  we  press 
with  eager  feet  and  panting 
\  breast  ;  but  settles  upon  the  flats 
of  life,  where  we  all  herd  together 
as  boon  companions  of  an  earthly 
bounty.  It  is  looked  upon  neither 
as  the  beauty  of  a  heavenly  grace, 
nor  as  the  trophy  of  a  faithful 
will ;  but,  like  a  handsome  figure 
or  a  fine  complexion,  as  a  happy 
combination  of  nature,  wholesome, 
not  holy.  The  world  and  its 
history,  its  muster-roll  of  conse- 
crated names,  its  ranks  of  the 
brave  and  good,  pass  before  such 
an  eye  like  troops  in  a  review ; 
whose  general,  seeing  a  regiment 
of  men  six  feet  high  and  in  the 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.       29 

prime  of  life,  says,  ^^  Fine  fellows 
these  !  "     The  purest  elements  of 
affection    are    incompatible    with 
this  temper ;  did  men  live  bj  its 
theory,  they  would  have  to  choose 
a   friend    as    they   would    buy    a 
horse,  looking  at   his  points  and 
showing    off   his     paces.     Where 
moral    qualities   are   degraded  to 
the  level  of  natural,  and  treated 
as  the  product  of  material  neces- 
sity,   the    well-springs   of    sacred 
love  are  quite  dried  up.     When  I 
love  another,  it  is  not  because  he 
ranges  at  the  top  of  the  Mammalia, 
but   because   his    foot  is   on   the 
steps  of  the   ascent   to   God.     If 
this   be    an   optical  delusion ;    if, 
when    we    look    up   together   to 
higher  altitudes,  our  hearts  burn 
within  us  in  vain ;    if,  when  I  am 


30  FAITH    THE    ROOT    OF 

weak  and  he  is  strong,  I  may  not 
cling  to  him  and  bid  him  lift  me 
by  the  virtue  that  goes  out  of  the 
very  hem  of  his  garmeiits ;  if  the 
pyramid  of  souls  up  which  we 
press  has  no  summit  in  the  heaven, 
but  the  attraction  by  which  we 
climb  on  the  one  side  is  to  become 
a  depression  for  returning  to  the 
sands  upon  the  other — then  is  all 
the  nobleness  of  affection  but  the 
witchery  of  a  lying  spirit,  and  its 
elevation  and  tenderness  exist  no 
more.  Whatever  remits  the  ten- 
sion of  aspiration  relaxes  the 
embrace  of  love.  The  dear  ties 
which  weave  our  spirits  into  rela- 
tions of  interdependence  are  not 
the  palpable  things  they  seem,  to 
be,  but  twine  around  us  as  a 
mystic   secret   beneath   the  outer 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.       31 


folds  of  life;  and  assuredly  the 
tissue  of  mutual  reverence  that 
binds  us  to  each  other  is  the  same 
that  holds  us  all  to  God.  Pro- 
spective faith  alone  supports  the 
dignity  and  hopefulness  of  human 
affections.  Without  it  there  may 
indeed  be  abundance  of  good- 
humoured  sympathy  and  indulgent 
pity;  for  moral  repugnances  having 
no  ground  left,  all  evil  appears  as 
a  physical  helplessness,,  and  the 
range  of  compassion  is  so  widened 
as  to  absorb  into  its  channel  all 
the  currents  of  a  good  heart.  It 
avails,  no  doubt,  where  thus  en- 
larged, to  quell  the  heats  of  anger^ 
for  what  we  pity  we  certainly 
cannot  hate ;  but  neither  can  we 
honour  it ;  and  the  great  problem 
of  morals — how  we  are  to  keep  the 


32  FAITH    THE    KOOT    OF 


precept,   '^Honour  all  men,"  yet 
see  all  tlie  meanness  of  many — is 
one   which   only   Christian    faith 
can  solve.     Living  in  mental  con- 
tact with   Infinite   Holiness^   the 
pure-minded     man     could     never 
honour  the   guilty  and  degraded 
on  their  own  account,  and' might 
be   supposed  to   acquire,   in    the 
society   of    congenial    spirits,   an 
utter  distaste  for  the  lower  throng 
of  sinful  beings.      But  there  has 
been  divinely  shown  to  him  a  tree 
which,  flung  into  the  bitter  waters, 
makes  them  sweet.    Let  him  turn, 
in    his    thought   of    the   wicked, 
from  what  they  are  to  what  they 
might   he,  and  the  turbid  film  of 
disgust  will  clear  away  from  his- 
heart,  broken  up  and  dispersed  by 
lights  of  glorious  capacity  gleam- 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    OF    LOVE.       33 

ing    through   the    cloud  of   their 
ignorance    and    guilt.      Knowing 
that  the  Dinne  affinity  of  spirit 
with  spirit  ^^is  not   dead   within 
them,  but  only  sleepeth,"  he  looks 
on  them  with  the  prophetic  eye  of 
trust ;  and  without  the  least  re- 
concilement   (indeed,     with    less 
than  ever)  to  what  they  now  are, 
he   is   touched   with   anticipatory  < 
reverence  for  what  they  are  meant 
to  be.     He  alone  who  thus  lives  as 
seeing  the  invisible,  can  face  the 
saddest  human  realities,  yet  lose 
no  reverential  affection.     He  loves 
imperfect  beings  as  a  mother  loves 
her    wayward    child,    and    kisses 
away  its   passion  and  its    tears  ; 
bearing  with  all  their  weaknesses 
for  God's  sake,  who  has  set  them 
at  the  parting  of  the  broad  and 


34  FAITH    THE    KOOT^    ETC. 


narrow  ways  as  tlie  needful  disci- 
pKne  of  freedom,  and  the  alterna- 
tive of  all  holy  possibility.  'N^j, 
once  possessed  by  this  faith,  he 
not  only  reads  the  Divine  possi- 
bilities, but  starts  and  evolves  ihem, 
by  assuming  them  in  other  souls, 
and  waking  them  into  living  power 
by  the  thrilling  truth  of  his 
appeal.  From  such  a  One  it  is 
that  even  enemies  turn  back  with 
the  words  "  Never  man  spake  like 
this  Man " ;  and  wherever  his 
Spirit  repeats  itself  in  His 
disciples,  you  will  not  look  in  vain 
for  ''^  the  dead  that  are  alive  again, 
and  the  lost  that  are  found." 


The   Lapse  of  Time,  and 
the  Law  of   Oblig^ation. 


THE     LAPSE    OF    TIME,    AND 
THE  LAW  OF  OBLIGATION. 

"While  the  earth  remaineth,  seed-time 
and  harvest,  and  cold  and  heat,  and 
summer  and  winter,  and  day  and  night, 
shall  not  cease/' — Genesis  viii.  22. 

Whoever  may  step  out  into  his 
garden  or  throw  np  his  window^  to 
breathe  the  first  air  of  a  new  day 
or  a  new  year,  cannot  fail  to  be 
struck  with  the  insensibility  of  " 
nature  to  our  divisions  of  time. 
The  greater  and  the  lesser  lights 
of  the  sky  feel  not  the  seasons  of 
which  they  are  appointed  to  be 
signs.  No  great  bell  of  the  uni- 
verse tolls  away  the  passing  spirit 


•38       THE    LAPSE    OF    TIME,    AND 

of  the  year;  no  chimes  ring  out 
from  the  restless  wind  to  greet 
the  period  new-born.  The  calm, 
eternal  heavens  maintain  their 
silent  steadfastness,  the  star  slips 
past  the  meridian  wire  which 
divides  century  from  century,  as 
though  it  were  a  vulgar  moment, 
without  pause  to  think  or  trem- 
bling to  feel  how  awful  the  mark 
it  sets  afloat  on  the  current  of 
eternity.  The  unconscious  earth 
lies  still  and  patient  as  before, 
feeling  only  how  the  trees  rooted 
in  its  bosom  are  leaning  and 
rocking  in  the  night  breeze,  and 
its  snow-mantle  is  folded  here  and 
unfolded  there  with  caprices 
stranger  than  a  child's.  No  stream 
suspends  its  song  to  listen  to  the 
moments  flowing  by,  no  tide  stands 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.        39 


still  to  watch  that  wondrous  sea 
of  time  that  ever  ebbs,  yet  never 
fails.  Even  life  in  its  several 
forms  and  generations  exhibits 
the  same  passionless  continuity, 
and  glides  from  era  to  era  without 
a  celebration.  The  cautious  bud 
skulks  near  the  bark,  and  sleeps 
unmoved  within  its  varnished  case, 
watching  the  royal  sun  as  its  ther- 
mometer, but  heedless  of  him  as 
its  timepiece.  The  animals  browse 
on  or  sleep  through  crises  the 
most  impressive.  And  the  men 
whose  life  goes  by  the  pulsations 
of  their  blood,  rather  than  the 
colours  of  their  thought,  to  whom, 
sensation  remaining  the  same, 
nothing  becomes  materially  dif- 
ferent, have  no  days  in  their 
calendar  chalked  with   the  white 


40        THE    LAPSE    OF    TIME,    AND 

mark  of  sanctity;  but  remember 
their  anniversaries  mainly  by  their 
dinners,  and  would  lie  down  at  the 
most  solemn  point  of  history,  if  it 
happened  to  be  time  to  rest. 

At  the  instant  when  lower 
nature  exhibits  this  unconscious 
uniformity,  many  a  wakeful  mind 
recognises  a  transition  of  the 
deepest  import.  Though  the 
bridge  which  stretches  from  year 
to  year  exists  only  in  our  idea,  it 
is  a  station  most  real  and  most 
commanding.  The  perspective  of 
the  past,  with  its  sharp  forms,  its 
clear  light,  its  receding  groups,  its 
boundary  circle  of  protecting  hills, 
lies  open  to  the  eye  of  love ;  and 
the  hazy  passes  of  the  future,  with 
only  gleams  of  glorious  sunshine 
cutting  across  the  deepest  dark- 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.        41 

ness^  and  facing  the  mountain 
shades  with  the  green  -  painted 
slope^  invite  the  heart  of  mystery. 
How  plain^  as  we  stand  there, 
hecomes  the  sense  of  what  we  are 
and  what  we  were !  With  how 
brilliant  a  sadness  do  the  young 
hopes^  the  high  resolves,  the 
capacious  ambitions  of  our  fresh 
days,  revisit  our  humbled  hearts  ! 
As  we  look  into  the  midnight  of 
the  departing  year,  how  do  the 
radiant  images  of  blessings  lost 
glow  amid  the  space,  till,  as  they 
begin  to  smile  on  us  again,  the 
darkness  closes  round  them,  and 
the  saintly  sight  is  gone !  And 
even  when  we  call  around  us  the 
living  company  of  friends,  the 
most  cheerful  eye  cannot  wander 
over  the   circle   without   many  a 


42        THE    LAPSE    OF    TIME,    AND 

pause  of  serious  wonder.  The 
recent  child  that  has  the  stature 
of  the  man ;  the  infant  we  have 
nursed  that  is  now  the  mother ; 
the  fresh^  careless  youth  faded 
perhaps  into  morose,  disappointed 
manhood,  and  sunk  from  a  fair 
promise  into  a  false  prime;  the 
comely  form  of  many  a  matron, 
faint  and  drooping  now ;  the  brow  no 
longer  smooth,  the  hand  no  longer 
firm;  the  lines  of  sorrow  on  the 
cheek,  deeper  than  the  tracery  of 
age ;  and  all  the  hieroglyphics  of 
mortality, — make  us  feel  that  we 
do  not  share  the  immobility,  and 
cannot  affect  the  indifference,  of 
mechanical  nature;  and  convince 
us,  as  we  hear  the  great  wheel  of 
Necessity  humming  its  dreadful 
monotony,  that  we  must  either  rise 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.        43 

into  a  transcendent  faith,  or  fall 
into  a  sad  despair.  Whoever  is 
imbued  with  the  wisdom  of  a  pure 
hearty  and  touched  with  the  sim- 
plicity of  Christ,  will  check  the 
rush  of  feeling  towards  confusion ; 
and  surveying  the  field  of  life  from 
the  high  station  of  love  and  faith, 
remain  to  the  end  master  of  its 
priceless  opportunities. 

The  habit  of  regarding  time 
rather  as  a  physical  than  as  a 
human  thing  is  connected  with 
not  a  little  low  morality,  and  dic- 
tates many  a  sentimental  thought, 
whose  currency  ought  not  to  hide 
from  us  its  falsehood.  It  is  often 
said  that  the  lapse  of  years  affects 
our  duty  by  shortening  the  period 
of  service ;  that  the  nearer  we  are 
brought  to  the  limit  of  our  present 


44        THE    LAPSE    OF    TIME,    AND 

career^  the  more  does  it  beLove  us 
to  make  haste  and  overtake  our 
work;  that  the  lessening  sum  of 
moments  must  be  spent  in  making- 
ready  for  our  change  of  scene.  And 
if  this  be  meant  only  as  a  sugges- 
of  natural  feeling,  or  compunction 
for  past  remissness,  it  states  what 
will  approve  itself  to  every  good 
mind.  It  is  not  fit  for  man  to  walk 
blindly  to  such  a  migration  as 
death;  so  great  a  thing  can  be 
worthily  approached  only  with  the 
open  eye  of  reason  and  of  trust ; 
and  whoever  knows  that  it  is  not 
far,  as  the  martyr  waiting  for  the 
kindling  of  his  fires,  or  as  the  aged 
and  stricken,  whose  summons  has 
been  signed  and  whose  respite 
cannot  be  prolonged,  will  fall  into 
a  corresponding  attitude  of  thought 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.        45 

and  find  some  soft  and  solemn  hues 
steal  over  liis  affections.  He  can- 
not but  stand  upon  the  watch 
ready  for  the  hint  that  trembles  on 
the  confines  of  the  hour,  for  it  is 
not  in  our  nature  to  feel  no  differ- 
ence between  a  near  certainty  and 
a  far  ;  and  when,  by  altered  place, 
the  distance  has  become  the  fore- 
ground, it  would  argue  an  unmanly 
insensibility  did  it  not  engage  us 
more.  But  this  is  simply  the 
natural  posture  of  the  affections  in 
an  unperverted  mind ;  it  is  not  a 
matter  of  obligation.  It  expresses 
preparation,  but  does  not  constitute 
it ;  it  reveals  the  Christian  linea- 
ments, but  does  not  trace  them. 
Much  more  than  this  is  implied  in 
the  usual  lessons  drawn  from  the 
lapse  of  years ;  and  it  greatly  con- 


46        THE    LAPSE    OP    TIME^    AND 

cerns  our  primary  notions  of  Chris- 
tian duty  to  understand  the  precise 
manner  in  which  that  duty  is 
affected  by  the  seasonal  changes 
of  our  life. 

Strictly  speaking",  very  little  in 
relation  to  man's  duty  depends  on 
the  diminishing  quantity  of  his 
time  to  come.  Whether  it  be  a  day 
or  a  half-century  makes  no  differ- 
ence in  the  nature  or  the  intensity 
of  his  moral  obligation,  though  it 
must  doubtless  affect  the  external 
actions  on  which  it  may  be  rational 
for  him  to  enter.  Nay,  if  there 
were  no  such  thing  as  death  for 
him  at  all;  if  he  had  the  early 
Christian's  expectation  of  immor- 
tality on  earth;  the  sentence  of 
reprieve  for  his  animal  nature 
would  bring  no   release  from  the 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATIO^^. 


glorious  bonds  tliat  are  laid  upon 
the  spiritual.  Every  hour  would 
retain  its  priceless  worth,  notwith- 
standing the  most  copious  supply ; 
nor  could  eternity  itself  cheapen 
the  moments  entrusted  to  his  will. 
When  Paul  gained  the  conviction 
that  he  was  raised  above  the  touch 
of  mortality ;  when  he  first  looked 
into  the  opening  avenue  of  ages 
and  saw  himself,  with  living  feet, 
securely  passing  through;  when 
he  felt  that  he  could  defy  the 
perils  of  shipwreck  and  the 
sword  of  persecution,  did  it  abate 
his  earnestness,  and  whisper  to 
him  that  he  had  time  enough  9 
Did  it  turn  his  eager  haste 
into  an  easy  stroll  ?  Did  it  fill 
him  with  moral  indifference  to 
the    world   that  slumbered  above 


48        THE    LAPSE    OF    TIME,    AND 


the  elements  of  explosion?  Far 
otherwise.  It  cooled  his  per- 
sonal interests,  and  made  him  so 
far  of  quiet  heart ;  but  it  set  his 
conscience  on  ^e,  and  he  spake 
the  truth,  he  soothed  the  sorrows, 
he  warned  the  sins,  which  would 
have  been  tho  objects  of  his  care 
had  he  beheld  that  age  of  Provi- 
dence as  we  look  back  upon  it 
now.  '^  What  would  you  wish  to 
be  doing,"  was  the  question  once 
put  to  a  wise  man,  ''^  if  you  knew 
that  you  were  to  die  the  next 
minute  ?  "  ''  Just  what  I  am 
doing  now,"  was  his  reply,  though 
he  was  neither  repeating  the  creed, 
nor  telling  his  religious  experi- 
ence ;  but,  for  aught  I  know, 
posting  his  accounts,  or  talking 
merry  nonsense  with  his  children 


THE    LAW    OP    OBLIGATION.        49 

round  the  fire.  N"otliing  tliat  is 
/  worthy  of  a  living  man  can  be 
i  unworthy  of  a  dying  one;  and 
whatever  is  shocking  in  the  last 
moment  would  be  disgraceful  in 
every  other.  The  most  trivial 
things,  in  their  order  and  season, 
lose  their  moral  incongruity  and 
meanness ;  the  most  lofty,  when 
misplaced,  are  deprived  of  all 
their  greatness.  He  who  is 
snatched  from  the  world  at  his 
prayers  when  his  work  is  overdue 
may  well  pass  with  culprit  heart 
away;  while  the  punctual  Chris- 
tian need  not  be  scared  to  find 
himself  brushing  his  hat  within  a 
minute's  reach  of  the  saints  in 
heaven.  In  truth,  it  is  impossible 
to  borrow  motives  from  the  mere 
approach  of  death  without  with- 


50        THE    LAPSE    OP    TIME^    AND 

drawing  them  from  the  other 
parts  of  life.  If,  as  our  term 
hastens  to  expire^  we  have  just 
reason  for  putting  forth  more 
strenuous  service^then,  in  proportion 
to  the  remoteness  of  the  goal,  we 
must  have  reason  equally  just  for 
less  strenuous  service  ;  our  obliga- 
tions must  present  a  series  of 
quantities  in  increasing  ratio ; 
there  must  be  times  unruled  or 
slightly  touched  by  Conscience 
when  its  authority  is  inchoate  and 
immature.  Were  it  thus,  sins  of 
deepest  dye  in  a  life  that  had  a 
year  to  run  would  have  a  lighter 
shade  if  five  remained,  and  might 
be  all  together  bleached  by  expo- 
sure to  twenty  summer  suns.  I 
need  not  say  how  degrading  it  is 
thus  to  assign  chronology  to  the 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.        51 

rule  of  duty,  to  give  shifting 
seasons  to  immutable  Law.  It  is 
to  look  at  the  most  solemn  of 
realities  through  illusions  of  our 
fancy,  to  suppose  the  holiness  of 
God  capable  of  relaxation  and 
intensity  by  changes  purely  phy- 
sical, to  subject  His  approval  to 
our  laws  of  mental  distance.  The 
proximity  of  death  may,  indeed, 
open  our  eyes,  and  startle  us  with 
the  consciousness  of  truths  but 
ill-discerned  before,  but  the  truth 
itself  was  no 'less  there;  the  duty 
so  pressing  on  our  hand  is  not 
created,  but  only  found  ;  the  neg- 
lect that  weighs  newly  on  the 
heart  is  not  a  product  of  to-day, 
but  oh,  of  how  wearisome  an  age ! 
Thus  there  is  always  a  lax  side 
to  this  sort  of  morality.     It  con- 


52   THE  LAPSE  OF  TIME,  AND 

nives  at  our  waiting  to  be  faithful 
till  we  can  scarcely  help  it,  and  by 
pressing  us  to  future  haste  slurs 
over  past  delay.  If  it  be  possible 
thus  to  make  up  for  lost  time, 
then  human  duty  must  be  a  kind 
of  task-work,  assigned  in  definite 
quantity  to  our  hand,  with  no 
stipulation  but  that  at  some  time 
or  other  it  shall  be  done.  If  it  be 
€apable  of  compression  it  must 
admit  of  dilution  ;  remissness 
may  be  compensated  by  diligence, 
and  early  assiduity  may  exhaust 
and  prematurely  finish  up  our 
obligations.  Against  a  conception 
so  base  every  true  soul  presents  an 
involuntary  remonstrance.  This 
responsible  existence  is  not  a  gaol, 
in  which  we  are  imprisoned  on  the 
ticket   system,  and   permitted   to 


THE   LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.        53 

work  out  our  term  of  hard  labour, 
and  by  good  use  of  spare  hours  go 
free  into  idleness  and  ease  for  ever 
after.  Its  sacred  bondage  is  no 
state  of  miserable  punishment,  of 
grievous  expiation,  to  be  sighed 
over  and  gone  through,  but  of 
severe  and  glorious  privilege, 
which  once  embraced  can  never 
be  resigned;  to  be  clung  to 
through  the  changes  of  death  as 
of  life,  like  the  piercing  yet  saving 
crucifix  of  self-denial.  It  is  as 
the  vow  of  pilgrimage  to  a  holy 
land,  the  sepulchre  of  saviours 
and  of  saints,  the  field  of  prophets' 
glory,  the  mount  of  Divine  trans- 
figuration, which,  real  as  it  is  in 
God's  universe,  lies  nowhere  in 
our  geography  ;  to  which  we  take 
our  passage  in  vain  by  any  steam- 


04        THE    LAPSE    OP    TIME,    AND 

ship;  which  the  Bishop  of  Jeru- 
salem cannot  help  us  to  find  out ; 
the  very  light  of  whose  beauty 
and  colours  of  whose  identity 
appear  to  have  fled,  as  we  stand 
upon  the  common  hills  and  look 
into  the  turbid  streams,  yet  whose 
image,  ineffaceable  from  our  be- 
lieving hearts,  still  tempts  us  on, 
explorers  of  successive  worlds,  and 
devoted  to  an  endless  quest. 
Whoever  cannot  resign  himself  to 
an  absolute  impossibility  of  moral 
collapse  and  rest,  however  much 
he  may  have  achieved — whoever 
wishes  to  earn  his  discharge  from 
the  service  of  God  by  the  length 
of  his  fidelity,  is  a  stranger  yet  to 
the  true  and  loyal  heart,  and  has 
taken  the  vow  of  the  hireling,  not 
the  sacrament  of  love.     On  this. 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.        55 

indeed,  rests  all  the  talk  about 
its  being  time  to  prepare  for  the 
change  of  worlds.  It  implies  that 
our  duty  is  but  a  means  to  a  future 
end,  the  medicine  followed  by  the 
sweetmeats ;  that  the  period  of  our 
submission  to  it  is  soon  to  close ; 
that  we  shall  then  have  done  with 
it,  and  reached  the  great  holiday 
of  our  existence.  This  is  to 
renounce  the  primary  sentiments 
of  conscience,  to  refuse  the 
authority  of  God.  It  denies  His 
Divine  right  over  us,  and  sets  Him 
on  the  level,  bargaining  with  us. 
It  abrogates  the  whole  law  of 
obligation;  proclaims  that  there 
is  nothing  above  interest ;  estab- 
lishes the  worship  of  wages ;  and 
degrades  heaven  and  immortality 
into  a  gigantic  pay-day.     I  know 


56   THE  LAPSE  OF  TIME,  AND 

of  no  more  shameful  profanation 
of  great  and  holy  realities.  The 
doctrine  of  retribution  is  most  true 
and  solemn,  but  it  constitutes  no 
duty ;  it  changes  none  ;  it  implies 
them  all.  If  we  were  not  bound 
without  it,  we  should  still  be  free 
to  please  ourselves  under  it ;  and 
it  would  be  nobody's  afiPair  but 
ours  if  we  chose  to  pocket  our 
remorse  and  take  the  conse- 
quences. !N'o,  it  is  not  retribution 
that  establishes  the  moral  law, 
but  the  moral  law  that  establishes, 
retribution.  The  shadow  falls  not 
hacJcward  from  that  world  to  this, 
but  forward  from  this  world  to 
that.  It  is  our  nature  and  our 
conscience  that  demand  and  must 
determine  our  future  lot ;  not  our 
future  lot  that   is   to   create   ouf 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.         57 

conscience  and  regulate  our  nature. 
The  true  disciple's  heart  claims  no 
recompense,  but  renders  willing 
service  after  service,  ^^  hoping  for 
nothing  again  "  ;  and  though  full 
of  high  expectancy,  and  lighted 
with  the  immortal  glow,  deriving 
thence  nothing  of  the  faithfulness 
of  duty,  but  only  its  grandeur  and 
its  joy;  content  to  be  among 
the  "  children  of  the  Highest,'* 
whether  in  one  world  or  in  two, 
for  an  hour  or  for  untold  years. 

"While  nothing,  in  relation  to 
human  duty,  depends  on  the 
diminishing  quantity  of  our  time 
to  come,  everything  depends  on 
the  ever-changing  quality  of  present 
objects  and  events ;  and  thus  it  is 
that  the  lapse  of  years  reads  the 
true  lesson  to  our  conscience.    The 


-58        THE    LAPSE    OF    TIBIE^    AND 

mere  iiiglit  of  dead  and  empty 
duration^  and  our  own  particular 
relation  to  it^  are  of  little  moment ; 
but  the  shifting  attitudes  of  the 
things  within  it,  the  vicissitudes 
of  the  beings  it  contains,  are  of 
the  highest  and  most  fearful 
concern.  They  are  the  conditions 
of  all  our  action,  whose  happy 
adaptation  to  them  constitutes  our 
moral  wisdom ;  whose  disregard 
of  them  makes  our  negligence ; 
whose  variance  from  them  creates 
our  folly  and  our  sin.  We  live  in 
a  world  of  progress  and  unrest. 
Every  object  by  which  we  are 
surrounded  is  passing  through 
evanescent  states,  which  must  be 
caught  or  they  are  gone;  and 
since  all  our  work,  not  being  a  mere 
flourish  of  activity  in  emptiness. 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.        59 

has  constant  reference  to  these, 
there  is  not  a  particle  of  it  that 
can  wait.  If  it  is  not  struck  down 
upon  the  instant  its  solid  efficiency 
is  all  wasted,  and  its  movement 
only  beats  the  air.  It  is  not 
the  seasons  only  and  the  clouds 
that  change  from  day  to  day ;  so 
that  if  you  cut  not  your  corn  by 
the  timely  autumn  sun,  the  hail 
will  pelt  out  and  the  damp  skies 
rot  the  hopes  of  the  year.  But 
there  is  nothing  that  stands  still 
in  time,  so  that  no  duty  at  all 
admits  of  delay;  each  is  strictly 
the  duty  of  the  moment ;  and  our 
moral  life  is  a  race  of  perpetual 
speed,  in  which,  at  every  step,  the 
ground  breaks  from  beneath  us, 
and  if  our  foot  be  not  ready  for 
the  advance  we  must  sink  with  it 


60        THE    LAPSE    OF    TIME,    AND 

and  fall  awaj.  The  child,  neg- 
lected to-daj,  is  less  teachable  to- 
morrow ;  his  pliant  and  submissive 
heart,  permitted  to  collect  the 
crust  of  ignorant  self-will,  will 
need  some  softening  ere  you  can 
begin ;  and  his  eager  questions, 
betraying  the  wide-open  mind, 
once  pushed  rudely  back,  you 
cannot  gain  entrance  till  by  false 
keys  you  have  unclosed  the 
curiosity  that  was  suffered  to 
collapse.  The  act  of  social  kind- 
ness, which  is  a  gracious  attention 
this  week,  becomes  an  overdue 
debt  the  next,  and  is  presented 
with  sad  apology  instead  of 
received  with  glad  surprise.  The 
want  which  we  vainly  purposed  to 
relieve  soon  looks  up  at  us  with 
reproachful    face    from   the    still 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.        61 

graves.  The  tears  we  failed  to 
wipe  away  dry  upon  the  cheek, 
and  leave  us  in  the  presence  of  the 
averted  features  of  distrust  in- 
stead of  the  eye  of  sweet  reliance. 
The  wounded  tenderness  to  which 
we  spoke  not  the  timely  and  sooth- 
ing word,  passes  into  permanent 
soreness,  instead  of  healing  into 
grateful  love.  All  round  our 
human  existence,  indeed,  does  this 
same  thing  appear.  The  just 
expectation  which  we  have  dis- 
appointed cannot  be  recovered; 
there  must  be  a  long  undoing 
before  you  can  weave  again,  in 
even  lines  and  pattern  fair,  the 
tangled  web  of  life.  Simply  to 
reinstate  the  former  conditions 
that  should  never  have  become 
confused  is  ever  a  vast  and  weary 


62        THE    LAPSE    OF    TIME,    AND 

task ;  a  barren  and  negative 
necessity,  fruitless  of  positive 
good,  the  mere  burdensome  crea- 
tion of  our  negligence.  It  is  trulj 
humiliating  to  think  how  enormous 
a  proportion  of  the  vrorld's  activity 
is  spent  upon  the  mere  repair  of 
evils  occasioned  by  human  unfaith- 
fulness. "When  the  physician  has 
reckoned  all  the  diseases  and 
sufferings  be  v^itnesses  which 
involve  any  element  of  guilt;  when 
the  lawyer  has  counted  the  suits 
brought  to  him  by  fraud,  injustice, 
and  cupidity ;  when  the  trades- 
man has  told  how  much  of  the 
cost  he  incurs  is  in  looking  up  the 
debts  which  else  would  not  be 
paid^  or  watching  the  servants 
who  cannot  be  trusted  out  of 
sight ;  when  the  labour  has  been 


THE    LAW    OP    OBLIGATION.        6B 

weighed^  which  is  occasioned 
wholly  by  broken  promises,  and 
disappointed  expectations,  and 
interrupted  contracts,  how  much, 
think  jou,  would  remain  to 
constitute  the  real  productive 
and  progressive  work  of  man- 
kind, compensative  of  no  arti- 
ficial evil,  but  fulfilling  the 
appointed  Providential  good?  If 
every  posture  of  things  were 
seized  by  the  faithful  conscience 
at  the  right  moment,  and  no  crisis 
were  lost,  who  will  venture  to  say 
what  sorrows  would  be  saved, 
what  complications  would  be  un- 
ravelled, or  even  what  interval 
would  be  left  between  the  heaven 
we  hope  for  and  the  earth  we  live 
in?  Nor  must  we  forget  that 
while  objects  around  us  perpetu- 


C4        THE    LAPSE    OF    TIME,    AND 

ally  change  we  ourselves  do  not 
'  stand  still.  We  also  are  subjects 
of  transient  and  evanescent  states, 
bringing  v^ith  them  their  several 
obligations,  and  carrying  away 
their  fruits  of  tranquility  or  of 
reproach.  Each  present  convic- 
tion, each  secret  suggestion  of 
duty,  constitutes  a  distinct  and 
^  separate  call  of  God,  which  can 
never  be  slighted  without  the 
certainty  of  its  total  departure  or 
its  fainter  return.  The  spon- 
taneous movement  of  the  heart 
€an  then  only  be  replaced  by  the 
strivings  of  a  heavy  and  reluctant 
•  "Will,  with  twice  the  work  and 
only  half  the  strength.  The  dif- 
ferent feeling  of  to-morrow  is 
destined  to  a  different  work,  and 
cannot  be  diverted  to  accomplish 


THE    LAW    OF    OBLIGATION.         65 

the  task  which  was  due  to-daj. 
And  so  the  power  which  is  not 
wisely  spent  must  be  wildly  wasted. 
Our  true  opportunities  come  but 
once ;  they  are  sufficient  but  not 
redundant;  we  have  time  enough 
for  the  longest  duty,  but  not  for 
the  shortest  sin. 


5 


Thou   Art    My   Strength. 


THOU    ART  MY   STRENGTH. 

"  I  can  of  mine  own  self  do  nothing." — 
John  v.  30. 

What  is  the  ''own  self"  between 
which  and  ''  the  Father  "  in  heaven 
Jesns,  in  thus  speaking,  marks 
the  distinction  ?  Where  is  the  line  , 
intended  to  be  drawn  which  parts 
the  two  agencies,  and  what  are 
the  works  characteristic  of  each  ? 
Must  we  place  on  the  one  side  the 
familiar  stock  of  powers  constitut-  . 
ing  the  human  kind,  and  conduct- 
ing the  routine  of  common  life,  and 
on  the  other  the  exceptional  inter- 
vention of  the  Supreme  Will  de- 
claring itself  in  signs  and  wonders?^ 


70        THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH. 

To  take  it  thus  would  be  to  narrow 
grievously  the  scope  of  the 
thought.  It  is  not  miracle  alone 
which  Jesus  ascribes  to  the  Father 
dwelling  in  Him,  while  retaining 
all  else  for  His  own  personality.  It 
would  be  but  a  vapid  tautology  to 
say  that  His  humanity  was  incom- 
petent to  the  superhuman.  'No; 
the  power  which  He  disclaimed  for 
Himself  was,  nevertheless,  not 
foreign  to  Himself.  It  was  in  Him, 
yet  not  of  Him;  it  came  to  Him, 
and  yet  was  at  home ;  it  was  from 
above  Him,  and  yet  "  worked  with 
Him  to  will  and  to  do."  Nay,  it 
was  an  enthusiasm  for  ^'^whatso- 
ever things  He  saw  the  Father 
doing  "  in  the  hearts  of  men  and 
the  government  of  the  world ;  a 
love  of  the  deeper  meanings  hid. 


THOU   ART    MY    STRENGTH.        71 

as  the  secret  of  God,  beneath,  the 
surface  of  life,  and  yet,  to  the 
sympathetic  eye,  rendering  it 
transparent  with  a  light  of  beauty. 
On  ^^  the  Father  showing  Him  all 
things  that  Himself  doeth,"  how 
else  could  the  Son  respond  than  by 
^^  doing  just  those  things  in  like 
manner  "  ?  That  was  the  presence 
in  His  soul,  that  the  living  touch  of 
Divine  Perfection,  which  lifted  Him 
out  of  His  "  own  self,"  and  made 
Him  the  vehicle  of  a  transcendent 
spirit  of  righteousness. 

In  this  view  the  power  here 
disclaimed  by  Jesus  and  referred 
to  God  is  the  same  in  kind  with 
that  which  the  Apostle  Paul  refers  . 
to  Christ,  when  he  says,  "  I  can 
do  all  things  through  Christ  that 
strengtheneth  me."     This  was  not 


72        THOU   AltT    MY    STRENGTH. 

the  gift  of  miracle,  not  the  im- 
planting of  knowledge  exotic  to 
the  mind,  not  any  superhuman 
attribute  conferred  by  Jesus  in 
personal  visitations,  but  the  simple 
might  of  spiritual  self-devotion, 
imparted  by  the  idea  of  his  great 
TThodel  dwelling  ever  near  his  con- 
science ;  which  taught  him,  with 
scarce  the  consciousness  of  effort, 
^^  both  how  to  be  abased  and  how 
to  abound."  It  was  the  force 
derived  from  the  tension  of  full 
affections,  by  which  they  crush 
resistance,  and  roll  out  the  most 
massive  difficulties  into  films  that 
may  be  whiffed  before  the  wind. 
It  was  the  power  natural  to  his 
grateful  and  loving  mind,  solely 
occupied  as  it  was  by  the  concep- 
tion of  One   who  had  been  that 


THOU    AET    MY    STRENGTH.        73 

mind's  emancipator^  by  delivering 
his  worship  from  the  bondage  of 
ceremony^  his  understanding  from 
the  sophistry  of  persecution,  and 
his  heart  from  the  miseries  of 
contempt.  From  the  thought  of 
this  holy  and  immortal  Son  of 
God  there  passed  into  his  will  a 
transforming  energy,  which,  it  was 
hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say, 
enabled  him  to  ^^do  all  things." 
For  against  what  defiances  did 
he  match  himself  in  vain  ?  Who 
at  the  end  of  life  could  look  back 
on  a  career  of  such  various  resolve, 
of  toils  despised,  of  perils  passed, 
of  unforfeited  constancy  to  truth, 
as  lay  beneath  the  retrospect  of 
"  Paul  the  Aged  "  ?  What  veteran 
leader,  pierced  in  the  hour  of 
victory,  could  hear,  as  he  fell,  a 


74       THOU   ART    MY    STRENGTH. 

shout  of  exultation  so  clieering 
as  the  concurrent  sympathies 
amid  which  Nero's  sword  dis- 
missed the  apostle  to  his  rest  ? 
Alone  he  had  thrown  himself  into 
the  crowd  of  Gentile  peoples,  to 
whom,  as  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews, 
he  was  an  object  of  twofold  scorn ; 
and  by  the  patience  of  his  will 
ruling  an  impassioned  heart  and 
ennobhng  a  fervid  speech  had 
won  audience  for  the  story  of 
Christ  from  Arabia  to  Rome.  He 
had  made  guilty  power  tremble  on 
its  seat  at  his  voice,  that  seemed 
charged  with  the  authority  of 
Righteousness  itself.  On  ^^  Mars 
Hill "  he  had  stood  face  to  face 
with  the  gods  of  Athens,  with  the 
dread  cave  of  the  Eumenides 
beneath   his   feet,  as   he   invoked 


THOTJ    ART    MY    STRENGTH.        75 

Jehovah^  Lord  of  the  heaven 
above  him^  to  take  possession  of 
the  heart  of  this  living  people^ 
and  claim  the  blue  -^gean  as  his 
own.  He  maintained  the  toil  of  a 
mechanic  that  he  might  perform 
better  the  duty  of  an  apostle. 
Persecuted  from  city  to  city,  he 
forgot  the  foes  behind  and  hoped 
for  friends  before.  He  is  cast 
into  prison ;  and  he  makes  a 
Christian  of  the  gaoler,  and  leaves 
him  to  preach  to  his  captives  ever 
after  the  glad  tidings  of  great  joy. 
He  tranquilises  the  terrors  of 
shipwreck  by  his  counsel ;  and, 
guarded  by  a  sentinel  at  Rome, 
he  goes  forth  under  cover  of  the 
darkness  to  seek  the  haunts  of 
misery,  and  kneeling  by  the  pallet 
of  the  sick  slave  breathe  a  prayer 


V 


76        THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH. 

of  strange  refreslinient,  bringing 
to  the  suffering  heart  the  protec- 
tion of  a  fatherly  God  and  the 
sympathy  of  a  brother  man.  The 
threats  against  his  life  never  damp 
the  manhood  of  his  spirit ;  but  his 
fettered  hand  writes  many  a  letter 
free  and  bold  that  bears  his 
cheerful  vigour  through  the 
churches,  and  sends  a  throb  of 
nobler  life  through  the  infant 
heart  of  Christendom. 

It  was  the  image  and  the  love 
of  Christ  that  gave  Paul  this 
various  power ;  and  it  was  the 
vision,  the  love,  the  spiritual 
touch  of  God  without  which 
Christ  could  do  nothing.  Thus 
he  explains  his  own  meaning 
when,  immediately  after  my  text, 
he   says   that  he  ^^  seeks   not  his 


THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH.        77 


own   willj   but   the     will    of    the 
Father  who  sent  him  "  ;  and^  just 
before,  that  ^^  he  can  do  nothing, 
except  what  he  sees  the  Father  do.'' 
The  thought   of   God  within  his 
conscience  was  his  strength;  and 
did  he  think  of  himself  he  would 
instantly   sink  in   weakness.     He 
lets  us  into  the  secret  here — not 
of    his    physical  power   to   work 
miracles,    but     of     his     spiritual 
power  to  transform  the   ideal  of 
righteousness  for  the  world.     And 
in  doing  so  he  bears  personal  testi- 
mony  to  a  profound  and    simple 
truth;     that    a    mere    prudential 
virtue,      though     extending      its 
reckoning  from  earth  to  heaven, 
can  attain  no  greatness ;  that  the 
most     refined     considerations     of 
interest    are     powerless     in     the 


78        THOU    AET    MY   STRENGTH. 

grander  emergencies  of  life,  and 
are  forgotten  in  all  acts  which  are 
venerable  and  holy ;  that  out  of 
the  idea  of  self  there  comes  no 
miracle.  Self -regarding  motives 
are  unable  to  initiate  the  highest 
acts  and  offices  of  duty ;  these 
must  remain  unperformed  unless 
some  great  moral  passion  imparts 
the  requisite  energy.  The  sterner 
services  which  society  has  a  right  to 
expect  from  faithful  hands — which 
at  all  times  may  imperil  ease  and 
reputation,  and  in  evil  days  involve 
liberty  and  life — would  never  be 
undertaken  on  the  most  exhaus- 
tive computation  of  advantage  to 
the  agent.  At  such  an  instigation 
what  tongue  would  ever  plead  for 
truth  unpopular  and  dangerous  ? — 
dangerous,  I  mean,  to  the  advocate 


THOU   ART    MY    STRENGTH.        79 

himself ;  and  unpopular,  not  with 
an  absent  multitude  whom  it  is 
easy  to  disregard,  but  with  his 
neighbours  and  his  hearers,  whose 
derision  he  witnesses,  and  whose 
alienation  his  loneliness  forces  him 
to  feel  ?  What  arm  would  ever 
strike  the  first  blow  at  a  powerful 
wrong,  and  be  uplifted  in  the  vow  of 
self- dedication,  often  that  of  self- 
immolation,  to  the  redemption  of 
the  oppressed  ?  Where,  amid  the 
prevalence  of  such  a  spirit,  would 
the  despised,  the  outcast,  the  slave, 
the  guilty,  find  a  friend  to  notice 
them  beneath  the  eye  of  day  ?  No  ; 
Providence,  as  if  to  break  the 
crust  of  our  selfishness,  has  decreed 
that  for  the  best  blessings  of  this 
world  men  must  venture  some- 
thing, must   often  venture   them- 


80        THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH. 


selves.  Progressive  knowledge, 
liberty,  religion,  are  not  won  with- 
out a  thousand  risks  ;  pearls  not  to 
be  had  without  a  plunge.  And 
those  who  do  not  think  the  moral 
relations  of  men  perfect  as  they 
are,  those  who  are  possessed  with 
the  conception  and  desire  of  a  new 
and  happier  world,  where  crushing 
want  need  not  exist,  and  character 
may  stand  at  a  higher  level,  and 
Religion  clear  itself  into  sublimer 
power,  must  look  for  it  across  the 
margin  of  present  darkness  and 
threatening  deeps;  they  must 
listen  with  no  landman's  shudder 
to  the  waves,  but  go  forth  in  faith 
like  Columbus  of  old,  when, 
haunted  by  the  vision  of  some 
happy  isles,  or  continent  of 
unknown     wealth     and     brighter 


THOU    A"RT    MT    STRENGTH.        81 

suns,  he  dashed  into  the  Atlantic 
storms  that  had  beat  upon  no  sail 
before,  and  still,  amid  want  and 
discontent,  steered  onward  to  the 
West,  looking  forth  from  his  prow 
from  midnight  to  dawn  till  the 
bird  brought  tidings  that  his 
prophecy  was  true,  and  he 
anchored  in  the  green  waters  of 
his  promised  land.  I  care  not  to 
decide  whether  the  spirit  of  moral 
enterprise  in  such  cases  is  really 
an  imprudence ;  let  the  Utilitarian 
make  out;,  if  he  can,  that  it  is 
justified  by  considerations  of  com- 
prehensive self-interest ;  and  that 
the  sympathetic  affections  which 
it  exercises  are  far  richer  in  hap- 
piness than  the  physical  and  other 
advantages  which  it  forfeits.  But 
I  do  say  that  this  is  not  the  esti- 


82        THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH. 

mate  which,  we  shall  make  at  the 
mLoment  which  calls  for  action  ; 
then  the  refined  satisfactions  of 
the  conscience  and  the  heart  have 
no  chance  against  the  importunity 
of  nearer  and  more  measurable 
benefits.  And  even  if  they  had — 
if  a  self -regarding  judgment  were 
passed  in  their  favour,  and  we 
said,  "Oh,  we  will  make  a  sacri- 
fice of  our  comforts  for  the  sake 
of  getting  the  pleasures  of  benevo- 
lence/' they  would  be  beyond  our 
reach ;  for  the  affections  refuse  to 
be  deliberately  made  the  tools  of 
prudence,  and  obstinately  fly  when 
sought  in  such  a  spirit.  Let  them 
alone,  and  they  will  do  their  duty ; 
count  on  them  and  canvass  them^ 
and  they  withhold  their  aid.  Even 
those  who  maintain  that  acts  of 


THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH.         83 

high  courage  and  noble  virtue  may 
have  their  birth  in  a  wise  prudence 
must  acknowledge  that  this  has 
not  actually  been  their  usual 
origin ;  that  the  great  and  excel- 
lent whose  names  humanity  holds 
most  dear  have,  in  fact,  left  unused 
the  motives  of  personal  welfare  by 
which  they  might  have  been  deter- 
mined in  their  choice,  and  have 
been  impelled  by  some  mighty 
passion  of  good  into  which  the 
idea  of  self  could  not  enter.  In 
truth,  our  best  affections  have 
that  in  their  very  nature  which 
prevents  them  from  being  objects 
of  anticipation  :  when  their  power 
is  not  on  us  we  know  not  what 
they  are,  and,  in  indolent  and 
selfish  conditions  of  the  mind, 
they  are  like  a  life  forgotten  in 


84        THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH. 

the  draughts  of  sin.  They  are^ 
indeed^  the  very  essence  of  that 
heaven  which  '^^  it  doth  not  enter 
into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive." 
They  ever  surprise  us  with  their 
blessedness ;  we  expect  a  stranger, 
and  find  an  angel  as  our  guest. 
The  prevailing  idea  of  Self  intro- 
duces a  moral  weakness  into  the 
will,  even  in  cases  where  there 
seems  to  be  no  call  for  disin- 
terestedness, and  the  duty  required 
appears  mainly  prudential.  The 
struggles  against  guilty  habits  are, 
I  believe,  often  unsuccessful,  so 
long  as  they  are  the  mere  struggles 
of  self-interest.  Many  a  victim  of 
some  wretched  vice  is  warned  of 
his  delusion ;  hears  the  whole  list 
of  its  results;  sees  distinctly  the 
picture     of     his     shattered     life. 


THOU   ART    MY    STRENGTH.        85 

trembling  at  every  breath  with- 
out, and  gnawed  by  self-contempt 
within ;  weeps  burning  tears,  and 
frames  passionate  resolves ;  and 
yet  secretly  feels  as  if  the  springs 
of  sincerity  were  not  touched,  and 
the  probe  had  not  reached  his 
volitions  yet.  He  feels  the  con- 
tortions of  misery,  but  not  the 
stirrings  of  a  better  life ;  and  the 
reaction  of  cheerfulness  brings 
the  madness  back  again,  and  once 
more  the  will  lies  prostrate  in 
shame  and  agony.  And  thus 
might  the  alternation  go  on 
did  not  some  one  come  to  him 
with  reasons  perhaps  not  half  as 
strong  but  more  affectionate ; 
turn  away  his  thoughts  from  the 
loathsome  image  of  himself;  fix 
them  on  his  children   whom  it  is 


86        THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH. 

not  too  late  to  save,  or  Ms  parents 
who  may  yet  be  comforted;  call 
them  to  some  enterprise  of  com- 
passion that  may  claim  the  whole 
faculty  of  an  intense  nature ;  tell 
him  how  Jesus  looked  with  a  holy 
mercy  upon  guilt,  and  it  broke 
into  instant  tears  ,  and  ask  him  to 
bend  low  his  head  before  the  Father 
divine,  and  breathe  forth  a  tran- 
quil confession  of  unfaithfulness, 
and  then,  with  his  image  and 
spirit  fresh  taken  to  the  heart, 
aspire  meekly  to  a  restored  mind. 
There  are  probably  few  who  have 
not  occasionally  met  with  instances 
of  an  apparently  wayward  recovery 
from  a  life  long  marked  by  profli- 
gate self-indulgence ;  where,  after 
the  repeated  failure  of  all  rational 
remonstance,      something     which 


THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH.        87 

seems  to  us  a  whimsical  fanaticism 
is  taken  up,  and  suddenly  the 
libertine  becomes  a  saint ;  and  in 
spite  of  the  world's  vulgar  insinua- 
tion of  hypocrisy,  and  cruel  pre- 
dictions of  relapse,  the  pure  will 
keeps  its  ascendant  seat,  and,  how- 
ever weary  in  some  moments  of  the 
race,  drives  the  chariot  of  the  pas- 
sions in  safety  to  the  goal.  The 
theory  of  these  cases  is  far  more 
honourable  to  them,  I  believe, 
than  our  distaste  to  everything 
unreasonable  permits  us  to  allow. 
They  are  cases  of  minds  that  out 
of  the  thought  of  self  can  do 
nothing ;  but  press  the  lever  of 
their  affections,  and  though  it 
seems  to  have  nothing  whereon  to 
rest  you  will  move  their  world. 
And  if  the   thought   of   self  is 


88        THOU    AKT   MY    STRENGTH. 

unable  to  exert  the  best  power 
over  our  own  minds,,  still  more 
signally  does  it  fail  to  give 
us  power  over  others.  A  purely 
self -re  gar  ding  being  is  necessarily 
a  solitary  being ;  bis  band  is 
with  no  man^  and  be  can  expect 
no  man's  band  to  be  witb  bini. 
If  be  be  wise,  tbere  may  be 
tbose  tbat  use  bis  counsel ;  if  be 
be  the  possessor  of  genius,  there 
may  be  those  that  like  to  see  it 
shine ;  if  he  be  rich,  there  will  be 
those  that  court  his  favour  ;  if  he 
be  the  leader  of  a  party,  there  will  be 
numbers  in  his  train ;  but  one  who 
is  unlearned  and  poor  and  private, 
and  yet  rich  in  the  endowments  of 
the  conscience  and  the  heart,  will 
exert  a  diviner  and  vaster  energy. 
The  planets  that  have  most  satel- 


THOU   ART   MY    STRENGTH.        89 

lites  careerinof  round  them  are 
most  in  the  dark  themselves.  To 
have  dependents  moving  about 
our  power  is  poor  compensation 
for  banishment  from  the  central 
love ;  and  the  full  grandeur 
of  that  gloomy  world  which, 
with  its  apparatus  of  rings  and 
moons^  rides  so  royally  through 
the  colder  planetary  tracks^  is  less 
fair  than  the  merest  crescent  of 
the  morning  star,  bathed  in  the 
intenser  flood  of  solar  light.  The 
wills  of  men  may,  of  course,  be 
influenced  by  all  who  have  fears 
and  hopes  at  their  command — who 
have  anything  either  to  give  or  take 
away;  and  minds  with  gigantic 
force  of  determination  may  pro- 
duce, without  much  moral  principle, 
or  any  benevolence,  or  exceptional 


90        THOr   ART    MY    STRENGTH. 

reach,  of  understanding',  a  deep 
impression  upon  society ;  chieflj, 
however,  upon  the  yielding  and 
unresisting  mass,  who  do  not  pre- 
serve the  same  shape  and  pressure 
from  age  to  age,  and  can  give 
perpetuity  to  nothing.  Those  only 
who  have  penetrating  sympathies 
and  a  devotion  to  something  more 
permanent  than  mere  convention- 
alism and  expediency  can  cut  deep 
into  the  few  firm  minds  who  pre- 
serve the  traces  of  the  past  for  the 
uses  of  the  future.  Compare  any 
set  of  dealings  with  the  human 
mind  conducted  with  the  presence 
and  in  the  absence  of  the 
thought  of  self.  In  education 
what  wonders  are  wrought  by  the 
teacher  becoming  in  heart  a  child, 
and  laying  aside  all  his  maturity 


THOU   ART    MY    STRENGTH.        91 

except  its  wisdom !  Instead  of 
listless  attention^  and  irritable 
tempers^  and  half-realised  ideas, 
and  incessant  complaint  of  per- 
plexity_,  and  a  hatred  of  all  know- 
ledge precisely  in  proportion  to  its 
value,  he  that  can  clothe  himself 
with  his  infancy  again  sees  around 
him  every  symptom  of  happy  and 
successful  instruction  ;  the  unlan- 
guid  eye,  the  eager  voice,  the 
delighted  onslaught  upon  a  diffi- 
culty, all  the  indescribable  natural 
language  of  a  mind  alert,  a  con- 
science quick,  and  spirits  pure  and 
light.  In  literature,  the  produc- 
tions thrown  off  as  a  bid  for  gain 
or  fame  have  never  enjoyed  an 
influence  comparable,  in  durability 
and  extent,  with  the  power  won  by 
the  spontaneity  of  genius,  and  the 


92        THOU   ART   MY    STKENGTH. 

fervid  simplicity  of  conviction  dis- 
interestedly surrendered  to  free 
creation.  Does  any  one  suppose 
that  a  hireling  pen  could  have 
indited  Milton's  immortal  pleas 
for  purity  in  the  Church  and  just 
liberty  of  speech  and  action  in  the 
State  ?  Or  that  the  cynical  exag- 
gerations and  stormy  grandeur 
of  Byron  will  endure  and  rule  as 
long  as  the  pure  truth  of  Words- 
worth—  the  growth,  not  of  the 
hotbed  of  passion,  bat  of  the 
snnny  slopes  and  forest  walks  of 
love  and  meditation  ?  No ;  all 
that  is  most  permanent  in  our 
intellectual  wealth  issues  from 
the  interior  and  disinterested 
realm  of  our  nature.  Only  in 
the  rarest  souls,  at  best,  are 
forces  lodged  adequate  to  produce 


THOU    ART   MY    STRENGTH.        93 


lasting  effects  of  good  upon  a 
world  little  penetrable  by  indi- 
vidual effort;  and  nothing  less 
intense  than  the  central  fires  of 
the  heart  can  open  clefts  in  the 
rocky  structure  of  society,  and 
project  the  precious  metals  of  true 
sentiment  through  its  mass  ;  the 
convulsion,  it  may  be,  of  one  age, 
but  the  riches  of  all  others. 

The  same  truth  is  found  to  hold 
in  every  other  department  of 
human  agency.  In  every  effort  at 
persuasion,  how  puny  are  the 
ingenuities  of  art  compared  with 
the  majesty  of  simple  conviction 
and  earnest  purpose  !  In  every 
attempt  at  social  reformation,  the 
power  which  begins  with  selfish 
expediency  goes  over  in  the  end  to 
the  faithful  few  who  refuse  to  cure 


94        THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH. 


one  wrong  by  recourse  to  another. 
The  assertion  is  not  true^  which 
we  often  hear^  that  the  most  re- 
markable triumphs  won  by  decision 
of  character  are  to  be  found  among- 
the  bad ;  the  most  numerous  suc- 
cesses may  be  theirs,  but  by  far  the 
grandest  prodigies  of  human  voli- 
tion are  recorded  of  the  champions 
of  the  right ;  with  the  magnitude 
of  whose  achievements  even  in  the 
field  not  the  love  of  glory  itself 
can  contend.  We  are  often  de- 
ceived by  the  length  of  time  re- 
quired to  ripen  the  successes  of 
conscience.  Jesus  said,  '^I  have 
come  in  My  Father's  name,  and  ye 
receive  Me  not;  if  another  shall 
come  in  his  own  name,  him  ye  will 
receive."  And  so,  doubtless,  it 
would  have  been ;  and  that  other 


THOU    ART    MY    STRENGTH.       95 

would  perchance  have  gathered 
no  "  little  flocJc/'  like  that  to  whom 
it  was  the  Father's  good  pleasure 
to  give  the  kingdom ;  he  might  have 
heard  the  acclamations  of  greater 
multitudes  than  cried  on  behalf  of 
Jesus^  '^Hosanna  to  the  Son  of 
David " ;  he  might  have  found  a 
throne  instead  of  a  sepulchre 
among  his  people  ;  and  then  would 
have  perished  as  a  rebel  against 
Rome,  instead  of  rising  to  be  the 
moral  Saviour  of  the  world.  The 
very  nation  on  whose  fortunes  such 
a  pretender  would  have  based  his 
ambition  is  swept  away  ;  its  glory 
is  a  tradition  and  a  dream;  the 
place  that  once  knew  it  shall  know 
it  no  more.  Meanwhile^  the  tale 
of  the  man  of  Nazareth  lives  and 
spreads,     perforating     with     its 


96        THOTJ    ART    MY    STRENGTH. 

sweet  melodies  the  shout  of  battles 
and  the  storm  of  time ;  refreshing 
still  the  heart  of  poverty  and  the 
downcast  penitence  of  sin;  float- 
ing- over  the  mutable  tide  of  civi- 
lisation as  it  passes  from  shore  to 
shore ;  and  bearing  faithful  spirits 
to  His  own  abode  of  rest.  Such  are 
the  triumphs  and  immortahtj  of 
conscience  and  inward  truth.  But 
self  is  a  feeble  and  a  barren  thing, 
and  out  of  it  such  wonder  will 
never  come. 


The   Claims   of  Christian 
Enterprise. 


THE    CLAIMS    OF    CHRISTIAN 
ENTERPRISE. 

"  In  lowliness  of  mind  let  eacli  esteem 
other  better  than  themselves.  Look  not 
every  man  on  his  own  things,  but  every 
man  also  on  the  things  of  others." — 
Philipp.  ii.  3,  4. 

If  we  cast  our  eye  over  the  names 
lield  by  us  in  the  most  honourable 
remembrance,  we  find  them  in- 
variably belonging  to  men  who 
have  quitted  the  common  path  of 
human  duty,  and  gone  out  after 
disinterested  ends  foreign  to  their 
private  sphere.  Even  the  fruitless 
austerities  of  the  ascetic,  however 
exposed  to  the  scorn  of  reason,  are 


100  THE    CLAIMS    OF 

not  without  a  sincere  cliarm  for 
the  imagination ;  for  thej  attest 
at  least  a  self-dedication  to  the 
idea  of  Divine  perfection^  a  pre- 
ference of  goodness  to  ease_,  so 
powerful  as  to  carry  the  will 
beyond  the  requirements  on  which 
m.en  insist.  They  seem  to  show  a 
generous  and  ungrudging  spirit 
that  is  not  content  with  paying  the 
tax  of  effort  imposed  by  the  moral 
law,  but  freely  throws  into  the 
service  of  duty  a  spontaneity  of 
sacrifice  demonstrative  of  a  faith- 
fulness beyond  all  bondage.  When 
Francis  Xavier  exchanges  the  in- 
heritance of  wealth  and  the  pur- 
suits of  philosophy  for  the  vows 
of  poverty  and  exile,  transferring 
his  genius  and  energy  from  Europe, 
where  they  might  have  ranked  in 


CHRISTIAN    ENTERPRISE.       101 


the  van  of  civilisation,  to  tlie 
obscure  East,  where  thej  could 
only  serve  in  the  rear  of  barbarism, 
and  assumes  the  garb  of  pilgrim 
or  of  prince,  if  he  may  but  lift  the 
cross  to  nations  unapproachable 
before,  our  hearts  confess  the 
justice  with  which  he  is  numbered 
with  the  saints,  and  scarcely  blame 
the  superstition  which  says  there 
is  a  sweet  fragrance  in  the  sands 
of  China  consecrated  by  his 
remains.  Oberlin,  quitting  the 
society  of  equals  and  the  presence 
of  every  refined  sympathy,  to 
spend  his  substance  and  his  life 
in  planting  the  Christian  culture 
among  the  neglected  mountain- 
-eers  of  Yosges ;  Clarkson,  smitten 
to  the  heart  by  the  spectacle  of  an 
unendurable   iniquity,    and  living 


102  THE    CLAIMS    OF 

onlj  for  its  abatement ;  Elizabeth 
Fry^  snatched  from  vanities  with- 
out and  vanities  within  by  her 
sweet  faith  in  the  all-conquering" 
power  of  Divine  truth  and  love, 
her  assurance  that  prison  walls 
and  iron  bars  are  no  hindrance  to 
the  Holy  Spirit,  and  that  where 
God's  whisper  of  recall  finds  it 
not  too  mean  to  go,  her  voice  need 
not  be  ashamed  to  speak  the  open 
word :  these,  with  all  the  noble 
host  of  heaven's  missionaries  and 
martyrs,  kindle  in  us  all  a  passion- 
ate homage,  and  fill  us  with  a 
respect  for  our  nature,  and  a  new 
hope  for  the  world.  The  bio- 
graphies of  such  persons  form  an 
I  unacknowledged,  yet  a  real,  portion 
i  of  the  Bible  of  our  hearts,  and  the 
sacred  Canon  of  our  life  ;  nor  has 


CHRISTIAN    ENTERPRISE.       103 


Christ  Himself  any  higher  office 
than  to  concentrate  upon  Himself 
all  the  scattered  lights  of  their 
separate  excellence,  and  become 
the  effulgent  centre  of  that  trust 
and  reverence  which  they  distri- 
bute over  history.  He  was  the 
culminating  instance  of  goodness 
that  did  not  remain  at  home ;  of 
patience  not  satisfied  with  its  own 
sorrows  ;  of  sanctity  which  at  once 
garrisoned  the  citadel  of  His  in- 
dividual mind,  and  involuntarily 
sought  an  empire  in  the  soul  of 
the  world ;  of  positive  and  aggres- 
sive devotedness  that  could  not 
dwell  in  a  village,  or  serve  only 
an  age,  but  "went  about  doing 
good,"  wherever  grief  and  sin  in- 
vited Him ;  first,  of  His  own  will, 
from   city   to   city   of   His  native 


104  THE    CLAIMS    OP 

province  ;  and  then  of  God's  will, 
from  land  to  land,  and  from  age 
to  age  of  human  history.  What 
is  it  that  so  subdues  us  in  these 
souls  of  large  adventure,  and 
makes  us  gather  round  them  as 
the  very  saviours  of  our  faith, 
compelling  us  to  feel  that,  were 
their  names  not  there,  the  record 
of  mankind  would  be  a  dreary 
thing,  and  were  their  voices  silent, 
the  course  of  time  would  have  no 
music  in  its  flow  ?  Surely  it  is  no 
sense  of  selfish  benefit,  no  grate- 
ful thought  of  what  they  may 
have  gained  for  us.  We  measure 
them,  not  by  their  success,  but  by 
their  worth  ;  and  had  their  striving 
been  in  vain  we  should  have  loved 
them  still,  only  with  a  sadness 
instead  of  a   glory  in  the   heart. 


CHRISTIAN    ENTERPRISE.        105 

No  ;  thej  wield  over  us  the  double 
power  of  rebuke  and  prophecy ; 
they  show  us  our  aspirations 
realised^  and  tell  us  that  our  con- 
science does  not  dream  ;  their  self- 
denials  put  our  comforts  to  the 
blush ;  their  heavenly  constancy 
looks  down,  as  from  a  clearer 
region,  upon  the  fickle  clouds  of 
our  inferior  mind;  we  long  to 
escape  from  our  tangled  plausi- 
bilities to  their  pure  simplicity, 
and  from  our  fretful  fears  to  their 
trustful  courage.  They  reveal 
to  us  the  spirit  of  the  life  we 
ought  to  live,  and  present  us  to  the 
God  who  will  uphold  us  in  it.  In 
our  admiration  of  the  nobly  good 
there  is  always  a  tacit  reference  to 
our  own  unsatisfying  state,  a  secret 
weeping  of  the  soul  over  its  mean- 


106  THE    CLAIMS    OF 


ness  and  its  misery,  and  a  gleam 
of  freshening  hope  like  the  first 
spring  day  to  the  invalid.  Thus, 
it  is  as  eternal  oracles  and  inter- 
preters of  conscience  that  it  is 
given  to  the  "  saints  to  judge  the 
world." 

'*^  Yet  are  we  required,"  the 
sober  critic  may  ask,  "  to  live  as 
they  ?  Was  their  course  even  one 
that  can  be  wisely  approved? 
While  they  are  away  nursing  the 
stranger  in  the  infirmary  of  human 
ills,  may  not  the  sickness,  in  this 
plague-stricken  world,  have  broken 
out  at  home  ?  Surely  it  can  never 
be  meant  that  we  should  leave  our 
own  sphere  to  be  cared  for  by 
others,  while  we  are  spending  our 
zeal  on  theirs  ?  Were  all  to  turn 
out  under  vows  of  ascetic  sacrifice  or 


CHRISTIAN    ENTERPEISE.       107 

missionary  devotion,  life  could  not 
go  on  ;  tlie  depository  of  in  tensest 
energy,  all  its  force  would  be  in- 
effectual ;  just  as  the  fastest  at- 
mospliere,  meeting  no  resistance 
but  flying  as  a  whole,  is  virtually 
at  rest  and  may  carry  within  it  the 
malaria  of  stagnation.  The  work, 
moreover,  which  has  engaged  the 
hand  of  saintly  men  is  no  legiti- 
mate task  of  Providential  creation 
— no  pity  for  natural  ills — but  is 
the  artificial  product  of  human 
wickedness,  the  redress  of  injus- 
tice, the  repair  of  guilty  neglect ; 
and  is  it  not  a  premium  on  the 
world's  unfaithfulness  to  take  the 
bitter  ashes  of  death  out  of  its 
mouth,  and,  unasked,  give  it  in- 
instead  the  healing  fruit  of  life? 
Under  a  holy  God  can  the  penal- 


108  THE    CLAIMS    OF 

ties  of  sin  and  the  performance  of 
duty  be  allowed  to  become  vicar- 
ious, so  that  I  am  to  be  my 
brother's  keeper  ?  Must  not  rather 
every  man  bear  his  own  burden  ? 
Did  each  in  his  time  and  place 
punctually  occupy  his  own  succes- 
sion of  obligations ;  did  he  suppress 
every  rising  desire  in  his  heart  and 
in  his  home ;  did  he  break  no  re- 
solve^ forget  no  promise,  sleep 
through  no  crisis  of  opportunity — 
the  very  ills  that  challenge  our 
heroes  to  the  conflict  would  never 
arise  :  the  fidelity  of  each  would 
create  a  Paradise  for  all;  or,  at 
least,  only  light  and  tranquil 
sorrows  would  remain.  If  the  earth 
exhibits  darker  shades,  this  is 
chargeable,  not  on  good  punctual 
souls  who  pay  the  debts  of  con- 


CHRISTIAN    ENTERPRISE.       109 

science  as  they  are  due,  but  to 
spendthrift  and  insolvent  sinners,, 
who  reduce  the  accounts  with 
heaven  to  bankruptcy.  What  more, 
then,"  it  may  be  said,  "  can  be 
asked  of  me  than  that  I  do  my 
personal  share  towards  the  order 
and  peace  and  virtue  of  the  world  ? 
I  tell  no  lies,  steal  no  man's  goods, 
break  no  trust ;  my  children  are 
taught,  my  servants  well  treated, 
my  friends  not  forgot ;  no  slander 
defiles  my  lips,  no  suspicion 
darkens  my  thought ;  appetite  is 
under  temperate  rule,  and  no  time 
is  given  to  sloth  and  vanity.  If 
all  men  would  do  the  same,  how- 
little  would  there  be  to  desire  \ 
Evil  being  prevented,  there  would 
be  scarce  any  good  to  do." 

Thus  are  we  driven  in  opposite 


110  THE    CLAIMS    OF 

directions  of  feeling  respecting  the 
heroes  of  the  cross :  impelled  to 
enlist  under  them,  and  to  desert 
from  them ;  brought  to  their  feet 
by  natural  reverence,  and  then  by 
a  theory  of  common-sense  with- 
drawn in  shame  at  our  enthusiasm. 
But  let  us  not  hastily  discard  the 
first  persuasion,  or  trust  ourselves 
to  the  narrower  interpretation  of 
God's  will ;  perhaps  the  truth  of 
both  may  be  reconciled,  or  the 
falsity  of  one  detected.  Certain 
it  is,  and  a  suspicious  certainty, 
that  the  view  which  looks  so 
rational  is  pleaded  for  by  all  that 
is  poor  and  low  in  us,  and  delivers 
us  from  the  noblest  and  most  pro- 
ductive sorrows  of  the  soul.  All 
the  lazy  conservatism  of  self- 
righteous    habit    is    on   its    side. 


CHRISTIAN    ENTERPRISE.       Ill 

There  are  inen_,  and  there  are 
moods  in  all  men,  that  cannot 
bear  to  be  reproached^  and  that 
feel  hurt  bj  only  the  silent  presence 
of  a  humiliating  goodness ;  that, 
by  infusion  of  a  poisonous  self- 
love,  have  degraded  conscience  to 
a  mere  sensitive  and  vulnerable 
complacency ;  and  at  the  first 
touch  of  aspiration,  catch  the 
disease  of  envy.  To  such  minds 
this  easy  little  theory,  that  dut}^ 
begins  at  home,  insidiously  ap- 
peals ;  it  takes  off  the  sense  of 
insignificance,  relieves  the  burden 
of  repentance,  and  administers  the 
consolations  of  calumny.  "  Those 
self-denying  people  resist  their 
appetites,"  v^e  say,  '^'that  they  may 
better  pamper  their  spiritual  pride ; 
and  the  private  households  of  your 


112  THE    CLAIMS    OF 

roving  philanthropists  would  sel- 
dom  bear,"   we   insinuate,    ^^any 
strict  examination  ;  so  that,  after 
all,  they  only  abandon  a  duty  on 
which  no  eye  is  fixed  for  one  which 
brings    a    consecrated    applause." 
Oh !  it  is  a  dangerous  and  beguil- 
ing thing  to  sit  thus  in  conjectural 
judgment  on  what  we  have  felt  to 
be    above    us ;    to   exchange   the 
bowed  head  and   hidden    face  of 
reverence  for  the  bold  front  and 
petulant  glance  of  the  critic  and 
the   objector;     to   repent   of   our 
purest    admirations,   and    suspect 
our   noblest   love.      There    is    no 
hour,  even  of  our  weakest  and  our 
falsest,  when  we  have  not  under- 
standing   enough    for    this    poor 
spoiling   work;     as    the    common 
labourer  may  pull  down  the  church 


CHRISTIAN    ENTERPRISE.       113 

which  only  genius  and  skill  can 
raise.  But  it  is  not  every  day,  'tis 
only  the  rarest  seasons  of  our  life, 
that  can  deliver  a  new  and  holy 
image  to  our  souls,  to  give  us 
silent  counsel  in  temptation,  and 
flit  as  a  light  before  us  in  the 
darkness  of  our  sorrows.  Let, 
then,  the  spirits  of  the  just  remain 
perfect  with  us  while  they  may; 
and  let  us  beware  lest,  hastily, 
through  the  spleen  of  wilful  un- 
belief, these  blessed  guests  be  ex- 
pelled from  our  inhospitable  hearts. 
In  the  present  instance,  the 
truth  which  stands  in  the  way  of 
our  first  admiration  is  of  the 
slenderest  kind.  I^o  doubt,  if  all 
men  did  their  duty,  the  very  mate- 
rials for  self-sacrificing  enterprise 
would  scarce  remain ;  and  in  such 


114  THE    CLAIMS    OP 


a  worlds  the  occasion^  and,  with 
the  occasion,  the  call  to  go  out 
beyond  the  personal  bounds  on 
missions  of  mercy,  would  appear 
to  cease.  If  we  contribute  our 
individual  share  for  the  further- 
ance of  this  result,  we  so  far  jpay 
our  subscription  towards  the  golden 
age  that,  in  bare  justice,  men  can 
demand  of  us  no  more ;  we  stand 
clear  of  their  claims,  and,  when 
they  come  to  us  with  further 
charges  for  other  men's  sius — why 
then,  were  we  so  little  Christians 
as  to  stand  upon  our  strict  rights, 
and  so  little  men  as  to  be  regard- 
less of  our  social  well-being,  we 
might  protest  against  bearing  a 
burden  not  our  own  and  say,  '^  Go, 
call  them  to  the  reckoning  at  whose 
door  this  evil  lies."     But  it  is  only 


CHRISTIAN    ENTERPRISE.       115 

as  between  man  and  man  when 
God  is  far  awaj^  only  in  the  ab- 
stract view  of  severe  distributive 
justice,  that  human  duty  can  re- 
solve itself  into  this  mere  keeping 
of  accounts  ;  and  so  little  can  the 
moral  capital  of  the  world  be  kept 
up  by  this  distraining  upon  bills 
delivered^  that  even  society  and 
law  are  perpetually  taxing  the 
faithful  and  orderly  to  discharge 
the  arrears  of  the  unscrupulous 
and  idle.  One  half  of  the  machin- 
ery and  work  of  all  government  is 
but  the  combined  effort  and  outlay 
of  just  men  to  repair  the  mischiefs 
of  the  unjust^  and  to  afford^  in  the 
prison,  the  court,  the  board  of 
healthy  the  public  school,  some 
poor  wholesale  substitute  for  indi- 
vidual fidelity.    We  live  in  a  world 


116  THE    CLAIMS    OP 

in  whicli  it  is  simply  impossible  to 
'  ignore  other  men's  neglected  obli- 
gations. To  look  no  further  than 
mere  self-interest,  he  who  will  not 
own  his  share  in  our  great  com- 
pany, but  insists  on  keeping  sepa- 
rate his  particular  debtor  and 
creditor  account,  will  only  accele- 
rate the  ruin  which  he  is  so  eager 
to  escape.  You  cannot  simply  let 
alone  the  heedlessness  and  sin  at 
your  right  hand.  If  you  treat  it 
like  dead  chaff  to  be  just  buried  out 
of  sight,  you  will  find  it  all  to  be 
living  seed,  that  will  germinate  and 
spread  like  the  poisonous  man- 
grove, till  your  habitable  lands  are 
'  turned  into  a  grave.  If  your 
neighbour  is  a  sluggard,  and 
allows  his  garden  to  run  wild,  in 
spite  of  your  protesting   justice. 


CHRISTIAN    ENTERPRISE.       117 

your  own  labour  will  be  increased. 
At  first,  perhaps,  you  will  try  the 
effect  of  greater  diligence  within 
the  limits  of  your  little  plot ;  you 
will  strengthen  its  fences ;  you 
will  ply  it  with  a  double  weeding 
power;  but  the  rank  grass 
creeps  through  the  hedge  at 
one  end  ere  you  have  finished  cut- 
ting it  out  at  the  other;  the 
thistle-down  sows  its  seed  with 
every  wind;  and  in  the  end  you 
will  find  it  best  to  take  your  spade, 
open  your  neighbour's  wicket 
while  he  sleeps,  and  dig  up  his  * 
ground  as  well  as  your  own.  And 
in  the  higher  view  of  conscience, 
this  is  clearer  still.  Duty  is  no  , 
fixed,  allotted  piecework,  assigned 
to  us  one  by  one,  as  if  each  was  on 
a   desert  island,  and   lived  a  life 


118  THE    CLAIMS    OF 

unaffected  by  the  rest.  Rather  is 
it  a  joint  enterprise^  a  perilous 
march  over  the  mountain  and 
sharp  encounter  in  the  field, 
committed  to  us  all  together^  as  to 
an  army  of  the  faithful.  So  when, 
in  this  life-battle,  the  front  ranks- 
give  way,  there  is  nothing  for  it 
but  that  the  second  advance  to  the 
brunt ;  and  if  they  too  are  struck 
with  faint-heartedness  and  fly,  the 
slighter  band  in  reserve  behind 
must  take  the  risk,  and  exchange 
support  for  conflict ;  and  even 
though  these  and  every  other  re- 
liance should  prove  infirm  or 
faithless,  still,  unless  all  is  to  be 
lost,  some  solitary  hero  of  Divine 
prowess,  some  leader  of  faith, 
some  captain  of  salvation,  some 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  will  hold  the 


CHRISTIAN    ENTERPRISE.       119 

desperate  fields  and,  by  expostulat- 
ing death,  rally  the  scattered  host, 
and  reopen  the  hope  of  victory. 
There  can  be  no  meaner  mistake 
than  to  suppose  that  each  one's 
duty  remains  just  what  it  would 
be  in  a  world  where  all  performed 
their  part;  and  only  a  soul  with- 
drawn from  the  vivifying  look  of 
God,  the  soul  of  moral  avarice,  - 
parsimonious  in  its  expenditure  of 
effort,  can  delude  itself  with  the 
imagination  that  what  would  save 
him  there  can  suffice  to  save  him 
here.  Every  man,  in  proportion 
as  he  is  a  true  son  of  the  Highest, 
feels  that  he  cannot  stand  by,  see- 
ing misery  and  guilt  within  his 
reach,  and  say,  ^^It  is  no  concern 
of  mine  " ;  he  knows  himself  re- 
sponsible for  all  the  wrong  lie  might 


120  THE    CLAIMS    OF 

prevent,  as  well  as  for  all  lie  may 
positively  do.  Obligation  cannot, 
from  its  nature,  exhaust  itself, 
and  come  to  an  end ;  writing  its 
^^  Finis,"  shutting  itself  up,  and 
standing  thenceforth  compact  and 
unsuggestive  on  the  shelf.  It  has 
no  measure  but  possibility  itself, 
and  thus  lies  ever  open  for  fresh 
lines  of  thought  and  love.  Who- 
soever has  received  of  heaven  the 
suggestion  of  some  practicable 
deed  of  goodness  or  sacrifice  of 
mercy,  bears  a  burthen  which  he 
never  can  lay  down,  and  which 
will  be  asked  at  his  hands  when 
he  knocks  at  the  everlasting  gate. 
It  is  the  holy  trust  committed  to 
him ;  and  how  is  he  straitened  till 
it  be  accomplished  !  Thus  do  the 
special  evils  of   the  guilty  world 


CHRISTIAN    ENTEEPRISE.       121 

make  room  enough  for  the  special 
fidelity  of  saintly  minds^  and  the 
vast  amount  of  neglected  obliga- 
tion swell  the  work  of  faithful 
men.  Nay,  not  even  should  we 
wait  for  the  direct  and  audible 
call  of  God  within  us.  Without 
sacrificeno  man  will  really  maintain 
the  spirit  of  a  noble  and  devoat 
life.  And  it  is  well  for  each  to  go 
out  deliberately  beyond  the  circle 
of  his  apparent  personal  obliga- 
tions, and  choose  for  himself  some 
work,  just  for  God's  sake  alone — 
some  work  to  which  no  inclination, 
no  necessity  invites  him,  but  which 
he  takes  in  pure  offering  to  Him. 
It  will  help  his  self-knowledge ;  it 
will  check  his  presumption ;  it 
will  exercise  his  patience ;  it  will 
test   his   fidelity.     It  is  not  that 

9 


122       CHRISTIAN    ENTERPRISE. 

such  works  constitute  his  main 
duty,  and  accumulate  any  gains  of 
merit.  They  are  but  like  the 
timepiece,  which  does  not  malce 
our  hours,  but  only  marks  them ; 
yet,  by  the  false  measurements  it 
thus  prevents,  and  the  self-decep- 
tions it  corrects,  is  a  priceless 
economist  of  life.  So  is  there  no 
such  measurer  of  the  way  eternal 
as  the  daily  sacrifice.  As  its  silent 
index  comes  round,  the  steadiness 
or  trembling  of  our  spirits  shows 
how  our  reckoning  stands  with 
God;  and  when  we  feel  not  its 
return,  save  by  the  passage  across 
our  heart  of  a  clearer  peace  and 
brighter  love,  it  is  no  slight  indi- 
cation that  our  course  is  ready  to 
be  finished,  and  the  hour  come 
that  we  should  be  glorified. 


LONDON : 

W.    SPKAIGHT   AND   SONS,   PRINTERS, 

FETTER  LANE. 


3^..'^? 


r  i-  V 


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